Red faces at BBC over 'crap' email

It was billed as 'a fantastic double whammy' for Five Live. Sky Sport's Andy Gray and Capital Radio's Jonathan Pearce were joining Radio 5 to cover next summer's World Cup, the corporation proudly announced last week.

But for one BBC sports executive the deal has turned into a spectacular own goal. Graeme Reid-Davies, executive editor of BBC Sports News, 'celebrated' the signings by sending Gordon Turnbull, head of BBC Radio Sport, an email. 'I think they're both crap,' he wrote.

What was supposed to be a private joke between friends quickly became a public embarrassment when Reid-Davies realised he had become the latest victim of an email blunder. Instead of sending the message to Turnbull alone, he had sent it to all 500 BBC sports staff - including the new signings, Gray and Pearce.

As he realised his mistake, Reid-Davies tried to limit the damage by sending another email to the staff entitled: 'We all make mistakes... and I just made a big one!' He went on: 'Apologies - having just had a long chat with Gordon about the good news regarding Andy Gray and Jonathan Pearce, I sent a joke email to him - and the rest of you. Just a private joke with the wrong keyboard key hit - sense of humour and all that. Happy Christmas.'

Reid-Davies said: 'Gordon had sent the message to all staff and instead of hitting the key to reply to him alone, I pressed Reply to All.

'It was just a joke between two old friends. I would not be doing the job I am doing if I really thought those things. Everyone's laughing at me. I can't believe I was such an arse.'

Turnbull called the email 'unfortunate', but said no disciplinary action would be taken.

Email gaffes are becoming increasingly common. Last year a London lawyer, Bradley Chait, forwarded to colleagues a message from his girlfriend Claire Swires about a sex act she had performed on him.

Within hours, the message - called 'Yum, Yum' - had reached millions of computer screens worldwide. Chait's bosses suspended him and five colleagues over the incident.

Ten staff were sacked and 80 suspended by the insurance giant Royal Sun & Alliance for circulating an email containing graphics of Kermit the frog and Bart Simpson having sex.