'Top Gear' G&Ts were 'irresponsible'

Top Gear scenes showing Jeremy Clarkson and James May drinking while driving "could be seen to glamorise the misuse of alcohol", the BBC Trust has ruled.

The presenters were seen sipping gin and tonics while travelling in the North Pole for last summer's Top Gear: Polar Special.

The Trust's editorial standards committee (ESC) partially upheld a complaint from a viewer who said the scenes were "irresponsible".

The committee said: "Whilst the programme was not primarily made for children, it had been shown pre-watershed and... given that some children would have regarded the presenters as role models, the scene relating to driving while drinking could be seen to glamorise the misuse of alcohol.

"The scene of drinking whilst driving was not editorially justified in the context of a family show pre-watershed."

However, the Trust rejected other points made by the complaint, including one about the use of frostbitten genitals. "There was a clear editorial purpose for the inclusion of an image of a frostbitten penis," said the ruling. "Its use had been for a medical rather than a sexual purpose."

The Trust did not uphold complaints about an edition of Question Time in which Kelvin MacKenzie called Gordon Brown a "socialist Scot who wants to spend every single penny you earn", or about scenes of a sexual nature in BBC Two drama The Tudors.