Surprising Paddy Energy advert was banned after Oscar Pistorius homicide trial joke

As Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone beer advert has allegedly been banned from TV, cinema and radio for that includes a ship load of F-bombs, it might be a superb factor the business by no means made its means onto the airwaves.

Whereas some debate whether or not the advert was deliberately not compliant with promoting guidelines, it is doubtless it might have obtained quite a lot of complaints and risked being booted off our screens anyway.

However, there’s one advert that may most likely go down in historical past as one of the vital complained about adverts of all time, and it isn’t arduous to see why.

Again in 2014, the Promoting Requirements Company (ASA) ordered Paddy Energy to tug its advert that includes convicted assassin Oscar Pistorius within the build-up to his trial.

The controversial advert provided clients refunds for dropping bets if the previous paralympian was discovered not responsible of the homicide of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

“It is Oscar Time. A refund if he walks. We’ll refund all dropping bets on the Oscar Pistorius trial if he’s discovered not responsible,” it stated, alongside an image of an Oscar trophy with Pistorius’ face on it.

Quickly after the advert’s launch, an online petition calling on the betting firm to take away the advert obtained almost 130,000 signatures in simply 4 days.

“138 girls died – within the UK alone – because of male violence in 2013. This kind of random carelessness for the lives of ladies by Paddy Energy is an affront to these girls and their households,” the petition wrote.

“I’m a survivor of home violence and abuse and I understand how many ladies world wide are struggling proper now considering that they’re fortunate to be alive when poor Reeva Steenkamp is lifeless.”

The ASA would often enable promoting campaigns to proceed whereas it investigates whether or not the advert has breeched the UK promoting code, nonetheless the watchdog stated it was compelled to take the ‘uncommon step’ of forcing Paddy Energy to take away the advert with instant impact in response to the general public outcry.

“We contemplate the advert could also be critically prejudicial to most people on the bottom of the doubtless additional critical and/or widespread offence it might trigger,” the ASA stated in an announcement.

“We’re additionally involved that the great status of the promoting trade could also be additional broken by continued publication of this advert.”

Within the early hours of Valentine’s Day 2013, Pistorius fired a number of pictures via a rest room door in his residence with a licensed handgun, killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in what he claimed was a tragic accident, having believed an intruder was within the residence.

Having initially been discovered responsible of culpable murder, in 2015 this was overturned and Pistorius was discovered responsible of homicide and sentenced to 6 years in jail. In November 2017, an additional 9 years have been added to his sentence.

Nonetheless, Pistorius was launched from jail in January 2024, after a parole listening to determined he was eligible, having served eight years behind bars for his crimes.