The BBC has removed the Still Game episode 'Recipe' from iPlayer after actor Eric Potts admitted making indecent images of children. The episode, which featured Potts as Mr Henderson of Henderson's Bakers, was pulled from the streaming service in light of his conviction.
Court case and guilty plea
Potts, 61, pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children at Blackburn Magistrates' Court. He admitted making 83 images over a decade between May 2015 and October last year. Seven of the images are Category A, the most serious classification, with 16 in Category B and 60 in Category C.
Prosecutors said he had shared five images on a single day on July 16, 2024. He was arrested earlier this year and initially charged with three counts of making indecent photographs of a child and three counts of distributing them.
Police investigation
Prosecutor Safia Hussain said: "Police officers attended the defendants home address and seized a number of devices which included a PC, an HP Laptop and an iPhone. They were taken for examination by the digital forensic unit, and a number of indecent images were found on the devices. The defendant was therefore charged with making and distributing images of Category A, B, and C."
Lancashire Constabulary confirmed they had first received information that the user of a file sharing account had uploaded an indecent video of a child to the internet on August 20 last year. Officers from the Internet Child Exploitation Team attended the address linked to the account. Potts was arrested on suspicion of possession and distribution of indecent images of children, then bailed pending further enquiries. More illegal imagery was found following an examination of his devices and he was arrested again, before being formally charged in September this year.
Episode removal and previous axing
A BBC spokesperson said: "In light of this conviction, we have removed an episode of Still Game from BBC iPlayer which features actor Eric Potts." The removal makes it the second Still Game episode to be deleted from the site. Season four, episode five, titled 'Hatch', was previously removed after actor Kevin Guthrie, who played Winston's grandson, was jailed for a sex attack on a woman in a Glasgow flat. Guthrie was jailed for three years in 2021 after being found guilty of the attack in 2017, later reduced to two years on appeal, and was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.
Career and sentencing
Potts, originally from Irvine, is due to be sentenced next month after pleading guilty to all offences on Thursday, October 1. He is also known for playing eccentric baker Diggory Compton in 50 episodes of Coronation Street. Prior to that, he appeared in Channel 4's Brookside for two years from 1998. Other TV credits include Casualty, Heartbeat, The Royal, Last of the Summer Wine, and an episode of Doctor Who.
