The BBC has apol­o­gised to Trinida­di­an Dar­cus Howe, who had a testy in­ter­view with one of the cor­po­ra­tion's news­cast­ers on Tues­day in which it was sug­gest­ed that he was him­self a par­tic­i­pant in the vi­o­lence which has shak­en Lon­don. The cor­po­ra­tion apol­o­gised for any of­fence caused, af­ter com­plaints from view­ers. The writer and pre­sen­ter was a guest dur­ing a dis­cus­sion about the un­rest on the streets of Lon­don when he was chal­lenged by pre­sen­ter Fiona Arm­strong. Howe had ex­pressed the view that the po­lice's mis­treat­ment of youths led to the up­roar. He al­so spoke about the ig­no­rance of po­lice and the gov­ern­ment when it came to deal­ing with the young peo­ple of Lon­don.

Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Howe de­scribed how his grand­son was stopped and searched by po­lice count­less times. He said what was tak­ing place in Lon­don and oth­er parts of Eng­land was not a ri­ot, but in fact an "in­sur­rec­tion of the mass­es of the peo­ple." He added that what was hap­pen­ing in Lon­don was go­ing on in oth­er parts of the world such as Syr­ia, Liv­er­pool and Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. Dur­ing the in­ter­view, Arm­strong asked him: "You are not a stranger to ri­ots your­self, I un­der­stand, are you? You have tak­en part in them your­self."

But Howe, speak­ing from the af­ter­math of the dis­tur­bances in Croy­don, re­spond­ed: "I have nev­er tak­en part in a sin­gle ri­ot. I've been part of demon­stra­tions that end­ed up in a con­flict. "Stop ac­cus­ing me of be­ing a ri­ot­er and have some re­spect for an old West In­di­an Ne­gro, be­cause you want­ed for me to get abu­sive. You just sound id­i­ot­ic-have some re­spect." Howe's com­bat­ive in­ter­view with Arm­strong quick­ly shot across the In­ter­net. Yes­ter­day, the BBC is­sued a re­trac­tion. Ed­i­tors called Arm­strong's ques­tion "poor­ly-phrased" and the BBC said it would apol­o­gise" for any of­fence that this in­ter­view has caused."