Transport for London has apologised for an advert which appeared to make light of women murdered on dates.
The advert by taxi-hailing app Kapten depicted a man staring down the camera and the words “When you recognises your blind date from the news ... Get me out of here Kapten.”
Work is being carried out to remove the advert from tubes after several people complained about it on social media. Many questioning how the advert could have been signed off in the first place.
Siân Berry, the Green Party London Assembly member, was one of the people who tweeted about the advert. She said she would ask the mayor “how that happened”.
“It literally jumps at you with offensiveness and there are supposed to be checks,” Berry tweeted. “TfL themselves have good adverts on safe travel so how it was missed I don’t know. Grim.”
TfL informed business magazine Campaign, on Monday night that it had decided to take the advert down, adding that Kapten had also contacted its advertising agent (Exterion Media) to ask for it to be taken down.
It was due to appear on tubes for a two week period.
Tfl admitted the advert did not meet the requirements and should not have been given the stamp of approval in the first place.
In a statement, Tfl said: “This advertisement was approved in error and we apologise for any offence it has caused. We are working to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
“The advertisement does not meet the requirements of our advertising policy and is being removed from across our transport network. Kapten have also said they will not use this poster in any future campaign.”
Mariusz Zabrocki, London general manager for Kapten, also apologised.
He told Campaign: “We received the first complaints on Friday and we started taking down this ad on the same day. TfL contacted us on Monday and we decided together to take it down everywhere in the TfL network immediately.”