September 9th 2023.
GB News presenter Martin Daubney fell victim to a scrambled autocue, completely botching a report on the capture of Daniel Khalife, a former soldier and terror suspect who had escaped HMP Wandsworth in south-west London three days prior.
Daubney began the segment with a rather confused expression on his face as he tried to make sense of the autocue. “First, it’s the news headlines…not it’s not, we’re going straight to me, it’s breaking news, this is fast happening,” he stammered, followed by a rather embarrassed laugh.
It was confirmed that Khalife had been apprehended by police in Chiswick, not far from where he had escaped. However, the newsreader seemed to struggle to get his words out as he attempted to explain the situation. “It’s all gone wrong,” he muttered under his breath, before pulling out a backup paper script and reading, “We have it coming up soon on the arrest of terror suspect, he escaped from Wandsworth prison, and he’s been apprehended, it’s all coming up in GB News.”
The segment descended further into chaos as Daubney's words got increasingly muddled. “We’ve got our first guest, here it is, police have escaped- arrested, p-p-prisoner Daniel Khalife…I beg your pardon, we’ll get the autocue in the right place, the story is just happening,” he said, before cutting to an interview with Chip Chapman, a Major-General and the Senior British Military Advisor to US Central Command.
Needless to say, the blunder didn’t go unnoticed by viewers. It quickly made its way to the internet, earning hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter. People were left in disbelief as they watched the chaotic segment, with one person tweeting, “This is so, so much worse than I thought it was going to be”, and another writing, “Oh my god this is sooooo bad it’s absolute comedy gold.”
Khalife was arrested for being unlawfully at large and for being an escaped prisoner, according to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police. Commander Dominic Murphy told reporters that the investigation was particularly successful, considering the challenge of locating an individual in a short time period.
Khalife was awaiting trial for charges relating to terrorism and Official Secrets Act offences. He was accused of preparing an act of terrorism and collecting information useful to an enemy, and was allegedly working for a hostile state. He denied the three charges against him and was set to go to trial in November.
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