The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, London

A BBC television executive resigned Friday over a documentary which wrongly implied Queen Elizabeth II stormed out of a photo shoot with celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz after a row over her crown.

Peter Fincham, who was controller of the main BBC1 channel, stepped down after an independent inquiry released Friday criticised "misjudgements, poor practice and ineffective systems" at Britain's public broadcaster.

Stephen Lambert, head of production company RDF, which made the documentary, also resigned.

The resignations come after a number of recent high-profile admissions from the BBC, its main commercial rival ITV and other broadcasters of faking viewer phone-in competitions or other parts of TV or radio programmes.

Fincham announced at a press launch on July 11 that the piece, "A Year With The Queen", would show the 81-year-old monarch storming out of the shoot after a row over whether or not she should remove her crown.

Fincham, who had described the scene with Leibovitz as "a very memorable litle sequence", had learned that the story was untrue within hours, but did not correct it until the following day.

The BBC later apologised after admiting that the sequence of events had been "misrepresented", creating the false impression that the queen had halted the photo shoot

In the footage, the monarch and Leibovitz were shown clashing over the photographer's request that she remove her crown at the shoot at Buckingham Palace in March.

"I think it will look beter without the crown because the garter robe is sot, " the footage showed Leibovitz saying, before the queen interrupted her.

"Less dressy? What do you think this is?" the monarch hit back, pointing at the ceremonial robe she was wearing and giving her an icy stare.

This was followed by footage of the queen walking down a corridor and telling an official: "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much."

But the BBC said that the second part was, in fact, shot when the queen made her way to the siting, not as she left They blamed an editing error for the blunder.

"In this trailer, there is a sequence that implies that the queen left a siting prematurely, " the BBC said in a statement

"This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented.

"The BBC would like to apologise to both the queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused."