The tweet that resulted in Danny Baker losing his job at BBC Radio 5 is being reviewed by police.

The broadcaster lost his job on Thursday after tweeting a joke about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son featuring a picture of a chimpanzee, the day after the Royals posed with their new arrival, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor.

Scotland Yard confirmed the force had received an allegation in relation to a tweet posted on May 8.

“An allegation has been received by the Metropolitan Police Service on Thursday May 9 in relation to a tweet published on May 8.

“As is routine, the allegation will be reviewed and assessed by specialist officers,” the Met said.

Following a backlash amid accusations of racism, Baker said he wanted to “formally apologise for the outrage I caused” following “one of the worst days of my life”.

He said: “I chose the wrong photo to illustrate a joke. Disastrously so.

“In attempting to lampoon privilege and the news cycle I went to a file of goofy pictures and saw the chimp dressed as a Lord and thought, ‘That’s the one!’

“Had I kept searching I might have chosen General Tom Thumb or even a baby in a crown. But I didn’t. God knows I wish had.

“Minutes later I was alerted by followers that this royal baby was of course mixed race and waves of panic and revulsion washed over me.

“F***, what had I done? I needed no lessons on the centuries slurs equating simians and people of colour. Racism at its basest.”

Following his dismissal by the BBC, the 61-year-old blasted his bosses for their handling of the situation and said he was trying to make a point about class.

Speaking to journalists outside his London home, he said it was “weaselly for the BBC to chuck us under the bus”.

He revealed that he ended his “lecture” from his bosses “with two very old fashioned Anglo-Saxon words”.

Baker alerted fans to his sacking when he tweeted “just got fired from BBC 5 Live”, before the BBC had made a statement.

BBC Radio 5 Live previously dropped Baker’s soccer phone-in show in 1997 when the broadcaster’s news chief Tony Hall, now the corporation’s director general, said he had crossed “the line between being humorous and controversial and being insulting”.

His BBC London 94.9 show was axed in 2012, days before he was due to be inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame.