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Danny Baker investigated by ‘specialist police officers’ over ‘racist’ royal baby tweet

Hes since apologised for the offending tweet

A police investigation has reportedly been launched into axed BBC star Danny Baker’s ‘racist’ royal baby tweet.

The former BBC Radio 5 DJ, 61, was sacked earlier this week after posting a black-and-white photo of a man and woman with a chimpanzee in human clothes alongside the caption: “Royal baby leaves hospital.”

Danny’s original tweet (Credit: @prodnose Twitter)

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Metropolitan Police has since released a statement confirming its “specialist officers” are looking into the now-deleted post.

It read, as quoted by the Metro: “An allegation has been received by the Metropolitan Police Service on Thursday May 9 in relation to a tweet published on the May 8.

“As is routine, the allegation will be reviewed and assessed by specialist officers.”

Twitter users reacted with outrage upon seeing the tweet and Danny quickly deleted it, issuing a number of apologies.

In one of them, he wrote: “Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased.

“Soon as those good enough to point out it’s possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And that’s it. Now stand by for sweary football tweets.”

In another, he said the day he posted the tweet was “one of the worst days” of his life.

He told his followers: “Good morning, everyone. Following one of the worst days of my life I just want to formally apologise for the outrage I caused and explain how I got myself into this mess. I chose the wrong photo to illustrate a joke. Disastrously so.”

The offending tweet was discussed on ITV’s Loose Women on Friday (May 10), as the panellists debated whether or not Danny’s apologies were enough.

And show regular Saira Khan got so worked up, she accidentally dropped the C-bomb live on air.

Saira Khan
Saira was fuming on Loose Women (Credit: ITV)

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Offering a somewhat calmer take, panellist Brenda Edwards said: “When I was younger, I had people making ‘monkey’ comments and all of that. If you’ve had that comment made to you, then you know how it feels. If you haven’t, then you just don’t know how it feels.

“And it hurts. When I saw that [tweet from Danny Baker], I was really distressed, offended, upset.”

She added: “And I just thought, gosh. As a human race, where have we gone to?”

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Nancy Brown
Associate Editor