The Apprentice: Doncaster businessman named as favourite as show returns

Doncaster entrepreneur Levi Hague – who has found himself in the headlines before the show even gets under way – is one of twenty candidates aiming to win £250,000 of investment from business mogul Lord Sugar.

Betting experts OLBG have shared the latest odds and predictions on who will win the new series which gets under way on Thursday, with Mr Hague tipped at 3-1 joint favourite.

Former RAF gunner and HGV driver Mr Hague was forced to apologise after controversial and offensive social media posts he made when he was younger were uncovered by a national newspaper.

He is hoping to leave a lasting impression on Lord Sugar with his personalised pet cremation urns.

He said: "Each urn is crafted with care to help families honour their pets in a truly meaningful way.

""I plan to scale production, expand into the pet cremation service sector, and establish Living Forever Memories as a globally recognised brand within the cremation industry."

Last week Mr Hague said he will do the city proud, after issuing a video statement apologising for the messages.

He released the three minute apology after a national newspaper unearthed old tweets where he called Doncaster women “dogs” and described police as “pigs” after he had been arrested.

The Sun on Sunday reported that the 33-year-old also called women “slags” and in one rant in October 2012, he appeared to refer to hate preacher Abu Hamza being extradited from the UK to New York on terror charges.

Tagging far-right activist Tommy Robinson, he tweeted: “Thank f*** that extremist dirty muslim preacher getting took out of this country. Just a waste of money and waste of space. F*** off.”

In the clip, Mr Hague said: “Well, it’s official, I’m going to be on The Apprentice series 20 representing Doncaster.

"Obviously, I wanted this to be a good surprise, starting on a high, but we’ve started on a big slump.

"The media has got involved and found tweets from 13-14 years ago when I was about 19-20 years old.

"Out of 2,000 tweets they are the only ones that they have found.

"Everybody’s got skeletons in their closet, who hasn’t got skeletons in their closet?

"Mine have come to light because I’m going for an opportunity that’s hopefully going to change my life and my family’s life.

"I’ve grown since then. I’m now 33, I’m husband and a dad, I’ve got my own business and worked hard to get where I am today.

"It’s a shame that the media is now going to twist this to make me a Muslim hating person when that wasn’t the case.

"In relation to that ‘dirty Muslim,’ I was talking about the extradition of Abu Hamza.

"He was stirring up hatred and murder in Britain and organised terrorist attacks.

"The other tweet was in relation to Lee Rigby being beheaded in the middle of London.

“People were mad, angry, saddened by it.

"I’m from that millenial generation where we even put our food of what we are having to eat on social media.

"These sexist tweets that I put – they weren’t sexist – they were in anger.

"I had a partner who cheated on me – I got some repercussions from that as well, which I’m not going to go into.

"Of course I’m going to be angry about that.

"I wasn’t respected and that’s why I vented.

"The one with the police was a one-off incident, I was about 19 when that happened.

"Rest assured, I’ve never had a run in with the law ever again.

"So let’s not start it on a downer. I has hurt me.

"It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"The media has stirred up something from years ago – if that’s all they can get on me, then wow.

“If you want to judge me from 14 years ago, be my guest, judge me.

“I’m proud of the man I am today. It’s going to be a good show and I hope I do Doncaster proud. I’m proud to be from Doncaster, I’m proud to be a Yorkshireman.

“I am sorry for the tweets and if they offended anybody, the terminology wasn’t right and wasn’t very articulate – we’ll end that there.

“I am really excited to get this going – I do have some really good moments – I hope people get behind me.”

"On one episode, you’ll see that all this will be irrelevant. You’ll be blown away.

"I can’t go into it or give and spoilers but you will be surprised.

"I hope you tune in on January 29 – pay your TV licence if you haven’t.

"Tune in and watch me do Doncaster proud – I hope you’ll all get behind me.”

The BBC said: “We were completely unaware that this contestant had made such abhorrent comments.

“We have asked the independent production company for further assurances on their social media checks given the process has not been completed to a satisfactory standard in this instance.

“The views presented are totally unacceptable and we are taking this extremely seriously.”

The Apprentice production company Naked said: “We pride ourselves on producing a series that promotes diversity and inclusion and has done throughout its 20 series. Levi’s historical posts contain language which is unacceptable and Levi has been spoken to about this behaviour.

“He has apologised and insists that these posts do not reflect the man he is now. We work with reputable third-party providers to carry out comprehensive background and social media checks on all of our candidates as part of our rigorous due diligence before casting.

“On this occasion, these checks failed to flag the offensive posts, therefore we will be reviewing this process moving forward.”

The Apprentice returns on Thursday 29 January at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.