French and Saunders spoof rapped

The French and Saunders sketch was a parody of movie Kill Bill

The BBC has upheld a complaint about a French and Saunders sketch featuring a beheading which was shown weeks after the death of Iraq hostage Ken Bigley.

In a spoof of the movie Kill Bill, Jennifer Saunders pretended to decapitate Dawn French in their BBC One show broadcast in October 2004.

Five viewers complained that the sequence was tasteless, coming three weeks after Mr Bigley was beheaded.

The BBC said it had been "a mistake" to show it at the time.

'Highly stylised'

The corporation's complaints unit said: "It had been made clear from the start that the sequence was a parody of Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill, which contains extreme and highly stylised violence.

"In normal circumstances, it would have been acceptable in the context of this series."

It was a mistake to show it at a time when the plight of hostages in Iraq was at the forefront of the public mind BBC complaints unit

The BBC instructed the show's production team to make potentially sensitive scenes more obvious in advance of future broadcasts.

Mr Bigley, 62, from Walton in Liverpool, was murdered by his captors in Iraq in October.

Other complaints upheld by the BBC during the first three months of 2005 included a complaint about pre-watershed swearing during BBC Two's coverage of last summer's T in the Park festival.

Another viewer complained that a Holby City storyline about a woman whose unborn child had Hyperplastic Left Heart Syndrome had given an inaccurate and alarming impression of the condition.