Frankly, this stinks. The punch was wrong, no argument with that, but it's past history now, it was dealt with. The time for any criminal, civil, or employment legal actions was back when it happened and certainly no later than approx. 30 days after the BBC internal inquiry concluded.
Tymon may have been a victim back in March, but he quite clearly did not wish to pursue legal remedies at the time or while the original matter was still being dealt with. He's now had a 6 month paid holiday according to reports, and is giving the appearance of doing nothing more than abusing the system to try to make a quick money grab as he pushes himself out of the job he claimed to love, evidently having exhausted the BBC's patience for paying him to sit at home quietly doing nothing for them.
I quite understand Clarkson being willing to just throw £100k at it to make it go away once and for all. That's relatively small change for him, and fairly good value for drawing a final line under it. I don't think Tymon is actually due £100k from Clarkson at all, and that he has little to no case, but the flawed legal system that we have sometimes makes a settlement the correct choice even when there's no real case. I also quite understand the BBC legal team telling Tymon to sod off, rather than opening the door to blatant opportunistic cash grabs. To me, this is only marginally above pure blackmail or extortion.
Disclaimer: That's all just my opinion based on the facts currently reported. Obviously there could be more to it which would cast it in a different light.
