As a new series kicks off on BBC One tonight, Sir Alan Sugar has threatened to quit The Apprentice due to biased editing.

Sir Alan has lashed out at the “outrageous” BBC edit of a trailer for Comic Relief Does The Apprentice and said if similar editing continues he will quit the show completely.

Sugar said: “I am the villain all the time. The idiot that edited it – and I don’t know who’s done it – went through the past five years of archive to find snapshots of me roaring like a deranged lunatic and just stuck them all together.

“That person feels that is how they want me portrayed. I did my nut about it, but it was too late. It had been screened and I wasn’t shown it beforehand.”

He added: “If the production team and the BBC continue to do things like that without showing me, I will not do this programme any more, it is as simple as that.

“Someone played a dirty trick, let’s put it that way. But they won’t do it again – because it will be the last time.”