Northamptonshire Police have launched a criminal investigation after a complaint was made about a joke featured in the children’s television programme The Basil Brush Show.
A member of the public complained after the show featured a joke at the expense of a gypsy character who sold Basil some lucky heather. A spokesperson for the England Romany, Gypsy and Irish Traveller Network said: ‘We are the last group in this country who you can openly mock and make racist jokes about.’ A police spokesman confirmed that they had received a complaint which had been logged as an ‘incident of a racist nature’, and that their Hate Crimes Unit was investigating.
