Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear drive around Argentina is to be re-investigated, after a judge reopened the case.
Three appeal judges sided with prosecutors against local Ushuaia judge Maria Cristina Barrionuevo’s decision not to press ahead with a criminal investigation over the number plate row that took place after the BBC motoring show filmed in the country.
The court probe was prompted by Falklands war veteran Osvaldo Hillar who filed an official complaint over a number-plate change on Clarkson’s car, the BBC reported.
“We think that the Top Gear team changed the plates with full knowledge of the fact that it was illegal,” Hillar said.
The case will now be reopened at Tierra del Fuego’s High Court.
Filming of a Top Gear special was abandoned in 2014 after it emerged Jeremy and his co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May were using a Porsche with the registration number H982 FKL, taken by some to refer to the Falklands conflict of 1982.
The cast and crew of the BBC Two motoring show had to leave their cars and flee Argentina after being pelted with stones by an angry crowd.
In April of this year, attempts had been made to have Jeremy charged with falsification after the controversial number-plate on the Porsche he drove was swapped ahead of a riot.
Andy Wilman, then executive producer of Top Gear, explained: “Before we entered Ushuaia we duly removed the H982 FKL plates from the Porsche. For a day or two, the plate on the back said H1 VAE (the plate left there, underneath H982 FKL, from when one owner had privately registered the car).
“There was nothing in the air to suggest trouble was brewing until the Argentinian veterans arrived and kicked off. We apologised that the existence of the plates earlier on would have caused offence. We explained they were now gone, and that they had not been a deliberate act.”
He added: “They didn’t believe us, told us to leave town or face the consequences, we did that very thing and drove into a night of violent terror.”
Jeremy’s spokeswoman Lucinda McFarlane and a spokeswoman for the show declined to comment.
The BBC sacked Clarkson after he attacked Top Gear producer Oisin Tymon at a North Yorkshire hotel in March.
Hammond and May subsequently announced their decision not to return to the BBC Two series. They are now working with Clarkson on their new motoring show for streaming platform Amazon Prime.
Discover more from London Glossy Post
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
