Director-General Mark Thompson was being questioned by lawmakers after a furor over telephone messages left by Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand for veteran actor Andrew Sachs which were subsequently aired on Brand’s radio show.

The messages included a claim by Ross that Brand had sex with Sachs’s granddaughter and suggested the 78-year-old — who played Spanish waiter Manuel in hit 1970s television series “Fawlty Towers” — might hang himself as a result.

“This is an example of a really serious editorial lapse which is not close to a boundary where you can debate it,” Thompson told the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee hearing.

“It is absolutely well on the wrong side of the line in terms of invasion of privacy and in terms of a lapse in duty of care to some of the individuals — Mr Sachs’s granddaughter being at the center of that.”

He said the lapse was “not typical of the BBC” and “very uncharacteristic” but added: “You cannot expect that sometimes we will not get it wrong.”

Ross, the BBC’s highest earner who hosts a popular Friday night television chat show and Saturday morning radio show, was suspended for 12 weeks in the wake of the row last month.

Brand, who is trying to build a film career in the U.S. with parts in films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” resigned from his show on Radio Two after being suspended.

The controller of Radio Two, Lesley Douglas, also resigned over the affair, which came amid a rumbling political debate over whether the BBC’s model of charging an annual 139.50-pound (177 euro, US$230) license fee for public service television is relevant in the digital age.

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