Andrew Billen: Ross needs to grow up | BBC Newsbeat editor defends broadcast | BBC statement in full | Transcript: the offensive calls | Comment Central: what the media is saying | Do 18,000 complaints matter? | Sachs' granddaughter: cruel Brand and Ross

The BBC suspended one of its biggest stars yesterday and saw another resign after its Director-General finally responded to an audience revolt over obscene phone calls aired on the nation’s most popular radio station.

As 27,000 members of the public made complaints and the Justice Secretary and the Archbishop of Canterbury both joined in the row, Mark Thompson finally apologised personally for the actions of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

Mr Thompson, who returned from a family holiday in Sicily to face an emergency meeting of the BBC’s governing body today, said that the pair, who sent the 78-year-old actor Andrew Sachs a series of sexually explicit messages, had shown a “gross lapse of taste” and suspended both from their BBC duties.

Ross then issued an abject apology of his own, before Brand announced that he had resigned from his Radio 2 show. He is travelling to the United States, where he will perform on Sunday night to an audience of 280 industry trendsetters in Los Angeles. Shows in San Francisco and New York are due to follow.

It came to light yesterday that Sir Michael Lyons, the head of the BBC’s governing body, had insisted that the corporation fast-track its handling of the row. He announced that the trustees would convene an emergency meeting today to hear the results of a BBC investigation into how the calls came to be broadcast. Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, is also conducting a separate inquiry.

Sources close to Sir Michael, Chairman of the BBC Trust, said that he had decided that the corporation was being damaged by its perceived sluggish response, and that waiting for a scheduled meeting of the trust’s Editorial Standards Committee, next Thursday was “not good enough”.

“It’s become apparent that this is a matter that requires action to be taken speedily, to demonstrate that it’s being taken seriously,” the source said.

Ross expressed his contrition for the “stupid error of judgment” that led to his “juvenile and thoughtless” remarks, which included shouting down the phone line to Sachs’s answer machine that Brand had slept with his granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. But there are still calls for Ross to follow Brand and quit.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, became the most senior politician to demand that he resign. Writing in his local newspaper, Mr Straw said that had Ross and Brand worked for a local radio station “they’d have been given their P45 before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’.” He added: “And it’s difficult not to feel that that’s exactly what should happen to these two so-called stars.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, speaking at the University of Glasgow last night, said: “I’m astonished that any editor gave the go-ahead to this disgusting and pathetic infantilism. Have we really got to this point of humiliation as entertainment? Why do we reward so colossally this toxic immaturity?”

Brand issued a video statement in which he said the calls to Sachs were “a really, really stupid thing to do”. He said: “As I only do the radio show to make people laugh I’ve decided that given the subsequent coverage I will stop doing the show.” He said he hoped that his resignation would mean “Jonathan and the BBC will endure less forensic wrath”.

Brand’s Channel 4 show, Ponderland, will still be broadcast tonight, and the comedian hopes to forge a career in Hollywood. He will next appear in Disney’s Christmas family film, Bedtime Stories, with Adam Sandler, and has been cast as Trinculo in a new film adaptation of The Tempest.

The chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications has said that there were fundamental flaws in the BBC’s regulatory and governance arrangements. Lord Fowler said in a letter to The Times that there was “confusion all round” because both Ofcom and the BBC Trust were investigating the row. He said that the public did not know who to complain to and it was not clear whether one of the regulators should preempt the other.

In his first personal response to the incident, Mr Thompson said: “BBC audiences accept that, in comedy, performers attempt to push the line of taste. However, this is not a marginal case. It is clear from the views expressed by the public that this broadcast has caused severe offence and I share that view. This gross lapse of taste by the performers and the production team has angered licence payers. I am determined that we satisfy them that any lessons will be learnt and appropriate action taken.”

Mr Sachs said he respected Brand’s decision to quit. “I hope he moves forward,” the actor said. “I hope he finds a better direction. I really wish him well, if he has done that.”

Ms Baillie, 23, a member of the burlesque dance troupe the Satanic Sluts Extreme, said that she was “thrilled because justice has been done”. She was at the centre of a newspaper bidding war and could earn £50,000 from her story.

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