BBC hit brakes on Stig's career

02 September 2010

The brakes have been slammed on racing driver Ben Collins's career as Top Gear's The Stig following his High Court battle with the BBC, sources have said.

Mr Collins is thought to be highly unlikely to return to television screens as the show's faceless mystery driver after the mystery was very publicly solved.

The case has also cast doubt on whether the character will reappear at all in the next series of the programme, played by a different driver.

A decision on whether The Stig will be axed altogether is expected in the next two months but is unlikely to be announced before the series starts in December.

The corporation took legal action to block publication by HarperCollins of an autobiography which would unmask Mr Collins's identity.

But after more than a day of legal argument in private, Mr Justice Morgan said yesterday he would not grant the BBC a temporary injunction to do this.

The identity of the driver has been a badly-kept secret, having already been published in the media last year.

Simon Dowson-Collins, HarperCollins's director of legal services, said The Stig was in court yesterday - but added that the publisher would not confirm the mystery driver's identity until the book launch on September 16.

He said: "We were very surprised the BBC took such action to prevent freedom of expression. We maintained all along that the information is already in the public domain."

It was widely reported that The Stig was Mr Collins after his company's financial reports listed Top Gear among its work.

Copyright © Press Association 2010