The BBC has demanded the makers of The Apprentice tighten their vetting after a candidate on the upcoming series was found to have made racist and sexist posts on social media.<\/p>\n
Levi Hodgetts-Hague, who will appear on the BBC business show fronted by Lord Sugar which begins at the end of January, wrote messages which branded Muslims \u201cdirty\u201d and called women \u201cslags\u201d, according to The Sun on Sunday which uncovered them.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old from South Yorkshire apologised for the posts which were deleted after the newspaper alerted the broadcaster.<\/p>\n
A BBC spokesperson said: \u201cWe were completely unaware that this contestant had made such abhorrent comments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have asked the independent production company for further assurances on their social media checks given the process has not been completed to a satisfactory standard in this instance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe views presented are totally unacceptable and we are taking this extremely seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
One message Hodgetts-Hague is said to have posted on October 2012, refers to radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza\u2019s extradition from the UK to New York on terror charges.<\/p>\n
It reportedly reads: \u201cThank f*** that extremist dirty Muslim preacher getting took out of this country. Just a waste of money and waste of space. F*** off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another posted in May 2013, is said to read: \u201cJust heard a right joke, Islam is a religion of peace. F*** LOL. Please tell me how beheading, bombing innocent people peace? #IslamAJoke.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to The Sun, one of his fellow Apprentice contestants is a Muslim.<\/p>\n
Other posts reportedly see him express support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and describe women from Doncaster as \u201cskets\u201d and \u201cdogs\u201d.<\/p>\n
A statement issued to The Sun on Sunday by Hague read: \u201cI am ashamed and embarrassed to have made these posts over a decade ago and I offer my sincere apologies to all who I\u2019ve offended, as well as my fellow candidates, for the truly awful language and views that they contain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take full accountability for the publishing of those posts. They are not a reflection of the values I uphold today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to apologise for my actions, as well as to the production team for failing to bring this account to their attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Apprentice production company Naked, said: \u201cWe pride ourselves on producing a series that promotes diversity and inclusion and has done throughout its 20 series.<\/p>\n
\u201cLevi\u2019s historical posts contain language which is unacceptable and Levi has been spoken to about this behaviour. He has apologised and insists that these posts do not reflect the man he is now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe work with reputable third-party providers to carry out comprehensive background and social media checks on all of our candidates as part of our rigorous due diligence before casting.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn this occasion, these checks failed to flag the offensive posts, therefore we will be reviewing this process moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Apprentice, which will see 20 candidates compete for the chance to win \u00a3250,000 and go into business with Lord Alan Sugar, returns on January 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BBC has demanded the makers of The Apprentice tighten their vetting after a candidate on the upcoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[16925,96,143470,143471,224,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-377173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-apprentice","tag-entertainment","tag-levi-hodgetts-hague","tag-lord-sugar","tag-social-media","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}