STIG'S BBC CAREER HEADING FOR AN EMERGENCY STOP 02/09/2010, By By Rosa Silverman, Press Association

THE BRAKES have been slammed on racing driver Ben Collins's career as Top Gear's The Stig following his High Court battle with the BBC, sources have said.

Mr Collins is thought to be highly unlikely to return to television screens as the show's faceless mystery driver after the mystery was very publicly solved.

The case has also cast doubt on whether the character will reappear at all in the next series of the programme, played by a different driver.

A decision on whether The Stig will be axed altogether is expected in the next two months but is unlikely to be announced before the series starts in December.

The corporation took legal action to block publication by HarperCollins of an autobiography which would unmask Mr Collins's identity.

But after more than a day of legal argument in private, Mr Justice Morgan said he would not grant the BBC a temporary injunction to do this.

The identity of the driver has been a badly-kept secret, having already been published in the media last year.

Simon Dowson-Collins, HarperCollins's director of legal services, said The Stig was in court yesterday - but added that the publisher would not confirm the mystery driver's identity until the book launch on September 16.

He said: "We were very surprised the BBC took such action to prevent freedom of expression. We maintained all along that the information is already in the public domain."

It was widely reported that The Stig was Mr Collins after his company's financial reports listed Top Gear among its work.

The BBC responded that this was "no surprise" as he had appeared numerous times on the programme and supplied drivers for it.

A spokesman for the BBC, which claimed the book would breach confidentiality obligations, said: "The Top Gear audience has always made it clear they enjoyed the mystery around the identity of The Stig. The BBC felt it important to protect that anonymity.

"The BBC brought this action as we believe it is vital to protect the character of The Stig, which ultimately belongs to the licence-fee payer.

"(The) judgment does not prevent the BBC from pursuing this matter to trial and it will not be deterred from protecting such information from attack no matter when or by whom it should arise."