Argentine ambassador slams Jeremy Clarkson over 'fabricated horror story' of how Top Gear team was attacked while filming

The ambassador’s comments will put pressure on the BBC to open a full investigation into the events

The Argentinian ambassador to the UK has accused Jeremy Clarkson of 'fabricating a horror story' in his account of how his Top Gear team was attacked while filming in Tierra del Fuego (Getty Images)

The Argentinian ambassador to the UK has accused Jeremy Clarkson of “fabricating a horror story” in his account of how his Top Gear team was attacked while filming in Tierra del Fuego this month.

Alicia Castro attacked the presenter for constructing a “tale designed to portray Argentines as savages”, and said it is a “malicious mockery” of those who lost their lives in the Falklands War.

Highlighting Clarkson’s claims in a Sunday Times article that a mob planned to burn the Top Gear team’s cars, she said this “did not actually happen”.

The ambassador’s comments, in an article for The Independent, will put pressure on the BBC to open a full investigation into the events.

The Top Gear crew fled Argentina after protesters claimed a car registration, “H982 FKL”, was a provocative reference to the Falklands War. Clarkson claimed it was “coincidental” while the show’s executive producer, Andy Wilman, said the team had not noticed the reference.

Ms Castro said Clarkson’s mention of the General Belgrano and the 1982 Sun headline “Gotcha!” spoke “volumes about his particular sense of humour and his political and cultural frames of reference”.

Dismissing his contention the crew was attacked because “we were English”, she said 250,000 Britons are “living happily” in Argentina, including a Welsh community “a few miles from where he was”.

A BBC crew spent 12 days in the region this year filming a fossil discovery, she said.

“They were very well received by the entire local community,” Ms Castro added.