A NEWSPAPER advert taken out by a Purbeck shopkeeper featuring a golliwog holding a glass of ginger beer has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

Viv Endecott, of Corfe Castle's Ginger Pop Shop, placed the advert in the Purbeck Gazette newspaper earlier this summer.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which received two complaints about the ad, banned it because it would likely cause "serious or widespread offence."

Earlier this year the Echo reported how The Ginger Pop Shop - an Enid Blyton gift store - was disqualified from the annual Purbeck Arts Festival's window display contest.

The display, called English Freedom, included tea-towels printed with words Ms Endecott agreed with depicted in red - like 'freedom of speech', 'liberty' and 'tolerance' - and words she disagreed with in grey - including 'slavery', 'ignorance' and 'political correctness gone mad'. The golliwog image was at the centre of the towel.

It was this image at the centre of the tea towel, over the words 'English Freedom'', that formed the newspaper advert.

After the ASA upheld the complaints, Ms Endecott said: "I am proud of my English Freedom tea towel which is designed to help the English to think about the best we aspire to be and the insidious ways we can subvert our values.

"The good golliwog was on the tea towel to represent how it has become impossible to discuss anything to do with race without being accused of racism.

"This is important, because when we couldn't talk about uncontrolled immigration, it paved the way for Brexit."

However, the ASA said many people were likely to view the character as representing negative racial stereotypes, and that its prominent inclusion in a press advert was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.

The ASA also added: "We also considered that the inclusion of the words 'English Freedom' in the ad was likely to contribute to that offence, because in combination with the image it could be read as a negative reference to immigration or race.

"We therefore concluded that the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence."

Ms Endecott says she has no plans to repeat the advert.

Earlier this summer Dorset Race Equality Council chief officer Adnan Choudry said: "Golliwogs don't just offend black people, they're offensive to people of any race.

"People used them as a means to abuse black people in the 1970s and 1980s - people still remember those days."