“Sky History stands against racism and hate speech of all kinds.”
Sky History has taken reality contest show The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker off-air following claims that one of the contestants, Darren Lumsden, has a Nazi-related face tattoo.
“While we investigate the nature, and meaning, of Darren’s tattoos, we have removed the video featuring him from our social media pages, and will not be broadcasting any episodes of The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker until we have concluded that investigation,” A+E Networks UK said in a statement.
“Sky History stands against racism and hate speech of all kinds.”
While we investigate the nature & meaning of Darren’s tattoos we have removed the video featuring him from our social media, & will not be broadcasting any eps of The Chop until we have concluded that investigation. Sky HISTORY stands against racism & hate speech of all kinds.
— Sky HISTORY (@HISTORYUK) October 20, 2020
On Monday, Twitter users began to point out that heavily-tattooed contestant Darren Lumsden appeared to have ’88’ tattooed on the right side of his face.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, 88 is “a white supremacist numerical code for ‘Heil Hitler’. H is the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 = HH = Heil Hitler.” The ADL say that it is one of “the most common white supremacist symbols”.
Is this the “history”, you idiots pic.twitter.com/tXlCctw5b9
— The Poisonous Euros Atmosphere Fan (@DawnHFoster) October 20, 2020
A+E Networks UK initially released a statement stating that the tattoo was a reference to his late father, and that contestants had all been subject to “extensive background checks”.
“Darren’s tattoos denote significant events in his life and have no political or ideological meaning whatsoever. Amongst the various numerical tattoos on his body, 1988 is the year of his father’s death,” said a spokesman.
“The production team carried out extensive background checks on all the woodworkers taking part in the show that confirmed Darren has no affiliations or links to racist groups, views or comments. Sky History is intolerant of racism and all forms of hatred and any use of symbols or numbers is entirely incidental and not meant to cause harm or offence.”
Sky History have now removed the initial tweet with the video, and their first statement.
The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker is hosted by Lee Mack, Rick Edwards and woodwork expert William Hardie.
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