Sweary local radio presenter: tape emerges
Saturday, 30 June 2007
Simon O’Brien, ex-Brookside actor and sometime TV presenter, quit his job as the breakfast DJ on BBC Radio Merseyside earlier this week after using the phrase “fuck the government”. The comment related to an ongoing battle over housing demolition on Liverpool’s Edge Lane and was made off-air (shades of Big Ron Atkinson here) but was “accidentally” broadcast as part of a trailer for another show.
How Do has a link to a 15-second recording of the incident (which elicits an initial guffaw, followed by the most pregnant pause in history), and features a testimony from an anonymous BBC staffer who claims no-one liked him anyway.
The fact that the off-air comment was “accidentally” broadcast - and then leaked on to the internet - is presumably coincidental. I’m guessing it has nothing to do with the possibility that someone within the station wanted O’ Brien out, and thought “accidentally” broadcasting a tape of him saying “fuck” would be the ideal way to do it.
