Gordon Ramsay causes prison security scare

Gordon Ramsay causes prison security scare
Gordon Ramsay causes prison security scare (Image credit: PA Archive/Press Association Ima)

TV chef Gordon Ramsay caused a major security scare while filming his new series at Brixton Prison - after losing a potato peeler. According to the Sunday Mirror, the South London jail had to be put on lockdown for two hours as prison staff searched for the missing peeler, amid fears that it could potentially be used as a weapon by inmates. However show staff were left red-faced after a check of their equipment revealed they had lost nothing - leaving them to explain their mistake to the guards. "This was all pretty farcical stuff," a show source told the paper. "When they were counting up the equipment at the end of the day's filming they realised they only had 11 potato peelers, when they thought they'd brought in 12. In prison, a potato peeler could be used as an absolutely devastating weapon. Eventually though they realised they had only brought in 11 peelers to begin with. "The look on their faces when they had to tell these tough prison guards they’d completely wasted their time was absolutely priceless" the insider added. Gordon had been filming scenes for a new show in which he teaches inmates how to cook - which will be screened on Channel 4 later this year.

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.