Jeremy Clarkson’s Top Gear days may be behind him now, but one of his more memorable episodes could come back to haunt him – with a possible three-year jail term.
Filming a Christmas special in Argentina, Clarkson and the rest of the crew had to make an escape to neighbouring Chile after a group of locals were angered by the number plate on the presenter’s car…
The number plate read ‘H982 FKL’ which they felt was a reference to the Falklands war. In an attempt to avoid confrontation, the Top Gear team switched the number plate, which was seen as falsification and nearly ended a full-scale criminal investigation against those involved.
According to a report in the Daily Express, state prosecutor Maria Cristina Barrionuevo decided not to press ahead on the grounds that the team had attempted to avoid further trouble.
However now three appeal judges have sided with prosecutors and ordered the reopening of the case – which could see those accused spend a worst case scenario of three years imprisonment.
The charges was triggered by a Falklands war veteran, who made an official complaint about the number plate change.
Clarkson’s co-hosts, James May and Richard Hammond, were also accused of goading locals about the Falklands war with their number plates.
An Argentine politician claimed the digits 269 in Hammond’s plate were conveniently close to 255 – the number of Britons that died during the war. Something similar was claimed about James May’s number plate, featuring the digits 646, close to the number of Argentine casualties (649).
Although filming of his new Amazon Prime show has started, Clarkson and his friends may have a few things to box off with regards to their last employment.
