Mrs Brown’s Boys star Brendan O’Carroll has claimed that a racist joke he made on set ‘was a good thing’ for the BBC. The Irish actor, 69, became embroiled in a racism row after he ‘implied’ the N-word in front of shocked co-stars and production staff. During a reading of the script while in character as Agnes Brown, O’Carroll is said to have said ‘I don’t call a spade a spade, I call a spade a…’ He then started to utter the N-word before he was stopped by a co-star, whose intervention was allegedly delivered while in character as Agnes’ daughter.

The two-year term in a young offenders’ institution handed to a teen driver who left a single mother quadriplegic when he drove into her while filming at the wheel ‘in no way reflects the severity of his crime’, critics said today. George Taylor made two calls, sent text messages and recorded five videos showing him driving a Volkswagen Golf at speed and overtaking other vehicles while using his knees on his steering wheel when he crashed into Catherine Davies, 51. Ms Davies, who worked as a fitness instructor, is now quadriplegic and requires lifelong care in a specially adapted property fitted with life-support equipment. Her disability means she may never again be able to hug her son, 10.

A couple claim they have been forced to sell their ‘dream’ seaside home because of a council’s bid to boost local tourism. Ann and Stephen Frew, aged 68 and 70, were diagnosed with cancer and Parkinson’s disease and bought the five-bedroom property in Great Yarmouth with the intention of moving in extended family as caretakers. But after spending £40,000 on renovations to make the home accessible to them, the pair’s ‘dream’ turned into a ‘living nightmare’ when they received an enforcement notice from the council – saying they didn’t have permission to use the building.

A swimming pool in Canada is doubling down on its decision to allow a man in a bikini to use a female changing room. The incident happened on July 5 of this year at Commonwealth Place in Saanich, British Columbia, and has since sparked a storm of controversy. Figures like JK Rowling and tennis legend Martina Navratilova have all weighed in, as local mom Angie Tyrrell revealed the response she received from staffers after complaining.

The fiancee of Conor McGregor stood by him as she leapt to his defence with a furious rant on social media against the woman who accused the mixed martial arts superstar of 𝑠e𝑥ual assault. McGregor lost the civil case as jurors at the High Court in Dublin found him liable of raping Nikita Hand, 35, in a Dublin hotel on December 9, 2018, with the judge awarding Hand €250,000 in damages. On Tuesday evening, four days after the court case concluded, McGregor’s partner Dee Devlin took to Instagram to deliver a blistering attack on Ms Hand – telling her ‘My sons will be warned women like you exist in the world’.

Mishal Husain is to leave the BBC after a 26-year career as she today became the latest high-profile female journalist to depart the organisation. The presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme follows Martha Kearney in leaving the show this year after the Irish star stepped down in the summer. But while Kearney has carried on presenting elsewhere on the BBC, Husain has gone entirely, announcing she is heading to Bloomberg.