The exchanges occurred during live commentary on the progression of the hearse as it travelled from Balmoral to Edinburgh.  With the Queen's coffin due to rest at St Giles' Cathedral, a BBC presenter mentioned John Knox, the radical Protestant minister during the Scottish Reformation, who is buried close by.  This prompted the following exchange:

Presenter: John Knox in there as well…dramatic

Commentator: John Knox of course being the old great Scottish reformer 

Presenter: Correct

Commentator: who cleared the Catholics out of Scotland.

Presenter: It’s how history remembers him.  (General laughter)

Setting aside whether the statement about John Knox is true (and there are grounds for believing it exaggerated the impact of the Reformation on Scottish Catholicism), the ECU accepted the reaction gave an inappropriate impression.  It is understood the laughter was a startled reaction to an unexpected comment, and not an expression of amusement, but it nevertheless tended to give the impression that religious persecution was a matter which could be treated lightly.

The BBC Guidelines on Harm and Offence do not preclude the possibility that BBC output may cause offence, but insist there must be a good editorial justification for broadcasting such material, and it must adhere to what are described as “generally accepted standards”.   These standards are not always straightforward to define, as they depend on context, and  meeting them will often involve broadcasters making finely balanced and split-second judgements.  But they would not, in the ECU’s view, include laughter apparently at the expense of a religious group in the context of a solemn occasion such as coverage of the Queen’s Funeral cortege. For this reason the ECU agreed there had been a breach of BBC standards.   

Before the complaints were escalated to the ECU, the BBC’s response  took the form of a summary of the BBC’s position, published on the complaints website which read as follows:

Summary of complaint

Some viewers have complained about comments, and the reaction to them in the    studio, about the Scottish presbyterian John Knox. 

Our response

We are sorry for the offence caused by the unscripted exchange during our live coverage of the cortege carrying the Queen’s coffin.

The merit of this response is that it offered a clear and unambiguous apology (“we are sorry for the offence caused”) and gave readers some explanation (“unscripted exchange”) for what happened.  This was in keeping with the BBC’s commitment to be open and honest about mistakes when they occur.  But in the ECU’s view it fell short in that it failed to be clear about who was likely to have taken offence and why. The impression given is that it was a remark about John Knox, rather than about Catholics, which precipitated the exchanges in the studio and the subsequent laughter. In such circumstances the issue was not satisfactorily resolved and the ECU upheld the complaint.
Upheld