Chris Harris: Ex-Top Gear presenter says he warned BBC over safety before Freddie Flintoff crash

Published

2 weeks ago

September 6, 2024

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A former Top Gear presenter has revealed he raised safety concerns with the BBC before Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff was seriously injured in a crash and warned someone could be killed.

Breaking his silence, Chris Harris said he “saw this coming”, but said the corporation failed to take him seriously.

TV presenter and former England cricketer Flintoff, 46, was badly hurt in an accident at the Top Gear test track Dunsfold Aerodrome in December 2022, which led to the show being pulled for the “foreseeable future”.

Last year, the BBC said it had agreed a financial settlement Flintoff, reported to be worth £9m.

Recalling the crash on the podcast the Joe Rogan Experience, Harris, 49, said: “I ran to the window, looked out, and he wasn’t moving.

“So I thought he was dead. I assumed he was, then he moved.”

He added: “The bit that I find really difficult is that in the aftermath of that accident the show was put on hold.

“Andrew had to recover from frankly awful injuries, and has done so – profound injuries.

“We all kept quiet. We said nothing, and I said nothing because I wanted to look after him. It wasn’t my story was it?

“I was caught up in the collateral damage.

“I lost my job immediately because they cancelled the show when my contract was up, so suddenly I haven’t got a job.”

He added: “And I just sort of got my head down. But I had seen this coming.

“There was a big inquiry, a lot of soul searching. The BBC is good at that.

“But what was never spoken about was that three months before the accident, I’d gone to the BBC and said, ‘Unless you change something, someone’s going to die on this show.’

“So I went to them, I went to the BBC, and I told them my concerns from what I’d seen as the most experienced driver on the show by a mile.

“I said, ‘If we carry on, at the very least, we’re going to have a serious injury, the very worst we have a fatality.'”

Harris also said he had asked to have a meeting with the head of health and safety.

He added: “What’s really killed me is that no one’s ever really acknowledged the fact that I called it beforehand.”

He went on: “I thought I’d done the right thing. I’m not very good at that. I normally just go with the flow, but I saw this coming.

“I thought I did the right thing. I went to the BBC and I found out really that no one had taken me very seriously.”

Previous Top Gear crashes

The accident was not the first faced by Flintoff during his time on the show. It followed a minor incident in February 2019 when he crashed into a market stall in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.

And in 2006, former presenter Richard Hammond was filming for the show when he crashed a jet-powered dragster called Vampire at nearly 320mph (515kph).

The presenter spent two weeks in a coma following the incident, which took place at the former RAF Elvington airbase near York.

He recovered and returned to the show in early 2007, but revealed in February this year that he fears he has memory loss as a result.

Former Take Me Out host Paddy McGuinness and Flintoff joined motoring journalist and racing driver Harris on the show in 2019, taking over from Chris Evans and Friends star Matt LeBlanc.

The show was initially launched in 1977, featuring a range of presenters and reporters in a half-hourly slot on BBC Two which proved popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

But its relaunch in 2002 as an hour-long entertainment motoring show, led by Jeremy Clarkson, Hammond and James May, turned it into a worldwide hit.

The BBC declined to comment on Harris’s claims and referred to a previous statement by BBC Studios.

This said a health and safety production review of Top Gear, which did not cover the accident but instead looked at previous seasons, found that “while BBC Studios had complied with the required BBC policies and industry best practice in making the show, there were important learnings which would need to be rigorously applied to future Top Gear UK productions”.

It added: “The report included a number of recommendations to improve approaches to safety as Top Gear is a complex programme-making environment routinely navigating tight filming schedules and ambitious editorial expectations – challenges often experienced by long-running shows with an established on and off-screen team.

“Learnings included a detailed action plan involving changes in the ways of working, such as increased clarity on roles and responsibilities and better communication between teams for any future Top Gear production.”

Entertainment

Kylie Minogue reveals major world tour news – her biggest in more than a decade

Published

8 hours ago

September 19, 2024

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Kylie Minogue reveals major world tour news - her biggest in more than a decade

Kylie Minogue has announced her biggest tour in more than a decade – as well as a new album.

The pop star’s Tension tour will open in her home country, Australia, before heading to Asia and reaching the UK in May 2025. More countries and dates in Europe and North and South America are set to be announced over the coming weeks.

It comes after huge success last year with her viral sensation hit Padam Padam and album Tension, as well as a Las Vegas residency and a big show at Hyde Park in London earlier in the summer.

“I am beyond excited to announce the Tension tour 2025,” Minogue said in a statement sent to Sky News. “I can’t wait to share beautiful and wild moments with fans all over the world, celebrating the Tension era and more!

“It’s been an exhilarating ride so far and now, get ready for your close up because I will be calling Lights, Camera, Action… and there will be a whole lot of Padaming!”

The UK dates include shows in Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Nottingham and Birmingham, and two at London’s O2 Arena.

Minogue first teased the news as she announced her new album, Tension II, earlier today – revealing the sequel will be released in October, with the lead single, Lights Camera Action coming on 27 September.

“But wait! There’s more…” she added.

The tour announcement followed this afternoon. It will be Minogue’s first since her Golden shows in 2018 and 2019 and her biggest since the Aphrodite: Les Folies tour in 2011, which followed the Aphrodite album and hits including All The Lovers and Get Outta My Way.

The new album includes the dance hit Edge of Saturday Night with The Blessed Madonna, as well as collaborations with Orville Peck, Bebe Rexha and Tove Lo, and Sia.

“The Tension era has been so special to me,” the star said. “I can’t possibly let it be over just yet!”

Minogue, who rose to fame on Australian soap Neighbours in the 1980s before becoming a pop mega star, has had hits throughout the decades ever since – from I Should Be So Lucky, Hand On Your Heart and Better The Devil You Know, to Confide In Me, Spinning Around and Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.

Padam Padam, released in 2023, marked another reinvention with a move into electronic dance, and became a viral hit.

Earlier this year, she was named a global icon at the Brit Awards, and won the Grammy for best pop dance recording for the single.

Entertainment

Geoff Hinsliff: Star who played Coronation Street villain Don Brennan has died

Published

9 hours ago

September 19, 2024

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Geoff Hinsliff: Star who played Coronation Street villain Don Brennan has died

Coronation Street star Geoff Hinsliff has died aged 87, ITV has said.

The actor was best known for playing Don Brennan on the soap from 1987 to 1997. He died last weekend.

Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt in the show, paid tribute to Hinsliff on behalf of Coronation Street and ITV, saying: “Geoff was a lovely, quiet man who will be sadly missed by us all.

“His partnership with Lynne Perrie was something rather special and they gave the viewers huge pleasure for many years.”

Born in Leeds, Hinsliff studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and initially appeared on Coronation Street in 1963 and 1977 as different characters.

He joined the cast as taxi driver Don in 1987.

His 10-year stint on the cobbles saw him commit kidnap and attempted murder after several business deals went wrong before his character died when he crashed his car into a viaduct.

Hinsliff made his television debut in an episode of Z-Cars and also appeared in Doctor Who, Brass and the film A Bridge Too Far.

He made his last TV appearance in Heartbeat in 2003.

Entertainment

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs refused bail a second time as he faces sex trafficking charges

Published

12 hours ago

September 19, 2024

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Sean 'Diddy' Combs refused bail a second time as he faces sex trafficking charges

Sean “Diddy” Combs has been refused bail a second time as he faces several charges including sex trafficking, drug possession and firearms offences.

US district judge Andrew L Carter said the government had proved “by clear and convincing evidence that there is no condition or set of conditions” that will ensure the safety of the community and that the rapper and music mogul will not tamper with witnesses.

The 54-year-old pleaded not guilty after he was first arrested by officers at the Park Hyatt hotel in Manhattan, New York, on Monday.

He was originally denied bail and told he would be detained after pleading not guilty to three felony counts during an initial court appearance on Tuesday.

Lawyers representing Combs asked a judge on Wednesday to let him await his trial at his luxury home on an island near Miami Beach, as opposed to in jail in Brooklyn.

But prosecutors argued against the proposal, saying there was too great a risk that Combs could threaten or harm witnesses.

Combs’s lawyers offered a $50m (£37.8m) bail package in exchange for his release to home detention with GPS monitoring and strict limitations on who could visit him.

Arguing to keep him behind bars, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the judge that Combs had a long history of intimidating both accusers and witnesses to his alleged abuse.

Ms Johnson cited text messages from women who said Combs forced them into “Freak Offs” and then threatened to leak explicit videos of them engaging in sexual acts.

She also said that Combs’s own defence team was “minimising and horrifically understating” his propensity for violence.

The defence and prosecution were wrangling over the request before the judge passed his ruling.

“I am feeling confident. We’re going to go get Mr Combs out of jail,” Combs’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo said on his way into court on Wednesday, before the judge decided Combs would spend his time before the trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

A legal indictment released after Combs’s arrest detailed allegations dating to 2008, accusing him of abusing, threatening, and coercing women for years “to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct”.

He allegedly induced female victims and male sex workers into drug-fuelled sexual performances, dubbed “Freak Offs”, according to the report.

Combs, formerly known as Puff Daddy and P Diddy, was once one of the most influential figures in hip-hop – famous as a producer and manager of the late Notorious BIG, as well as a rapper in his own right for hits including I’ll Be Missing You, Come With Me, and Bad Boy For Life.

However, in November, his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit accusing him of coercing her, and others, into unwanted sex in drug-fuelled settings.

The suit was settled in one day, but months later CNN aired hotel security footage showing Combs punching and kicking Cassie and throwing her to the floor.

He apologised after the video aired, saying: “I was disgusted when I did it.”