Channel 4 is preparing to defy the broadcasting regulator by refusing to accept a ruling that a joke by the comedian Frankie Boyle about the disabled son of a glamour model should never have been aired.
Katie Price complained to Ofcom in December after a joke about Harvey, her visually impaired eight-year-old son, in an episode of Tramadol Nights, Boyle’s Channel 4 series. The comedian said that Price had married a cage-fighter because she needed a man strong enough to protect her from Harvey’s sexual advances.
Price, also known as Jordan, expects the watchdog to say this week that the comments were not fit to be broadcast, according to sources. But Channel 4 sources said that the broadcaster would refuse to apologise, and would stand behind Boyle.
David Abraham, Channel 4’s chief executive, disclosed this year that he had given approval for the joke to be broadcast. He is said to regard airing near-the-knuckle comedy as a matter of principle.
In a speech to programme-makers in January, Mr Abraham said: “That particular joke was discussed in compliance all the way up the line. The context of that joke was clearly and manifestly satirical. The satirical contact was clearly against the backdrop of certain things that have happened in Jordan’s own reality show that Frankie makes fun of.”
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He added: “I hope many of you have noticed . . . that when we are being hounded by the press to defend creative risk-taking, that we do so robustly.”
Harvey is Price’s son by the footballer Dwight Yorke, formerly of Manchester United. He has septo-optic dysplasia, a rare condition that includes hormonal deficiencies.
Boyle’s series was shown after Price’s divorce from her first husband, the singer Peter Andre. Boyle also joked that Price and Andre were involved in a residence battle over Harvey, and “one of them will lose and have to keep him”. At the time Price said: “To bully this unbelievably brave child is despicable; to broadcast it on television is to show a complete and utter lack of judgment.”
Boyle has stood by his comments, and has said that he regards Price’s decision to let her children feature in reality TV shows as exploitative. At a charity gig last month he said: “Jordan’s twin prongs of media profile are her disabled son and her sexuality — and they don’t really belong together.” But he followed up his reasoning with a joke about the child’s blindness, adding: “There’s no way Harvey was watching that joke.”