'Mortified' Clarkson begs forgiveness for using racist insult in non-aired clip

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has reportedly 'begged' forgiveness for using a racist insult in a non-aired camera clip while recording for BBC's globally successful show.

Clarkson explained that he had recited an old nursery rhyme that included a racist term, but had tried to mumble out the offending word in it and on watching the recordings he had asked for another take to be used, replacing the word entirely due to some ambiguity in the original.

Clarkson, in his response on Twitter to the media reports, said that a few years back he had recorded an item for Top Gear, in which he had quoted the rhyme 'Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe', News.com.au reported.

Clarkson added that he had been well aware that in the best-known version of this rhyme there is a racist expression that he had been extremely keen to avoid.

The Top Gear presenter said that the full rushes of his shoot show that he did three takes, adding that in two he mumbled where the offensive word would normally occur and in the third, he replaced it all together with the word 'teacher'.

Clarkson said that when he viewed the footage several weeks later, he realised that in one of the mumbled versions, if one listens very carefully with the sound turned to maximum it did appear that he had actually used the word, which he had been trying to obscure.

Clarkson added that he had been mortified and horrified with the word as it is a word he loathes and he begged forgiveness for that fact that his efforts were obviously not quite good enough.