Holy F Word..Gordon Ramsay sparks prison scare
Gordon Ramsay reportedly sparked a major security alert after misplacing a potato peeler while filming in jail.
The celebrity chef is spending the next three months making the new Channel 4 show, in which he teaches inmates how to cook in a bid to rehabilitate them.
Brixton Prison was put on lockdown for two hours earlier this month while guards searched for the utensil, fearing it could be used as a weapon.
However, production staff subsequently realised they had miscounted their equipment and hadn’t actually lost anything.
“This was all pretty farcical stuff. Obviously filming in a prison can be very challenging as you have to follow very strict security procedures. Crew have to draw up inventories of every single thing they bring in,” a source told the Sunday Mirror.
“When they were counting up the kitchen 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.
“Lo and behold, they realised they’d only brought 11 inside in the first place. The look on their faces when they had to tell these tough prison guards they’d completely wasted their time was absolutely priceless.”
Ramsay is said to “really care” about the project and to believe cooking will teach offenders discipline. He was apparently inspired to get involved because his brother Ronnie spent time in an Indonesian prison for heroin possession back in 2007.
A Prison Service spokesman confirmed that there had been a “miscalculation of kitchen equipment”.