'I'd probably watch child porn': Crimewatch presenter Nick Ross courts further controversy after rape row

Nick Ross defended his comments about rape on This Morning on Friday. (Rex Features)

A week after Nick Ross caused widespread offence with his views on rape, the Crimewatch presenter is again ruffling feathers with his controversial opinions.

Speaking at the Hay Festival Ross, 65, reportedly suggested that West Indians are more likely to be behind certain crimes, such as muggings, and said he’d “probably” watch child pornography “to see what all the fuss is about”.

During a talk at the arts and literary festival he claimed that all humans were essentially curious, while discussing a study revealing that internet users clicked on links to extreme pornography even if they hadn’t searched for it.

“We’re all inquisitive. I had never seen, until I started working on Crimewatch, child pornography,” The Telegraph reports him as saying. “I think if someone came to me and said: 'Would you like to see what all the fuss is about?’, I’m sorry, I probably would say yes.”

He also reportedly aired controversial views in relation to crime, allegedly claiming that certain ethnic communities were more likely to commit certain crimes, and alleging there was no evidence of institutional racism in the police force.

“We’re very bad pickpockets in this country,” Ross said. “We’re incredibly good at car crime. It does seem that contact crimes of the sort people don’t like, such as mugging, are specifically of some communities from the West Indies.

“Does that mean they’re worse than us? No. Does that mean they’re less moral, than us? No. It just means they’re not very good at pick pocketing, they do this sort of crime.”

Ross is quoted as admitting his comments might get him into “hot water” again just days after he waded clumsily into the rape debate by comparing “provocatively dressed” women to a bank “storing sacks of cash by the door”.

The comments, made in his latest book, Crime and How to Solve It, and Why So Much of What We’re Told is Wrong, which Ross is at Hay to promote, have been roundly criticised.

He argues that many women do not report rape because they feel partly to blame because they have had sex unwillingly with boyfriends or while drunk: “For them, rape isn’t always rape,” he writes.

His remarks provoked a storm of criticism from women’s rights campaigners and on social networks. Sarah Green, of End Violence Against Women, said his comments were “provocative, crude and horrible”.

Fellow TV presenter Fern Britton, 55, who was raped when she was 21, told The Mirror: “The fact is that rape is rape. If you don’t want it, but someone does it against your wish, then it is a violation.”

“Nick’s a great guy, but he’s not a woman ... he’s not somebody who has been invaded in a way that he didn’t wish to be invaded.”

Defending himself on This Morning TV show in Friday, Ross said that rape can never be justified but that preventative measures can be taken to help avoid it.