A comedian has come under fire for telling inappropriate jokes at a flagship conference to combat racism and prejudice in the workplace.

Bradford University Professor Charles Husband had just finished giving a keynote speech at the Bradford Training & Enterprise Council organised event when Warrington comedian Charlie Hale took to the stage.

The conference, called 'Evolve or Die', was aimed at making business owners and recruitment officers react to the changing face of the modern workforce.

But, no sooner had the professor sat down than Mr Hale, who had been picked specifically because he is black, launched into a series of jokes which even organisers admitted "over-stepped the mark".

As soon as Mr Hale left the stage, Professor Husband, who is the professor of Social Analysis at Bradford University, asked to be handed back the microphone and re-took the stage.

He warned the audience that even using stereotypes in humour could reinforce prejudices rather than dispel them, which was greeted with applause.

But, today Mr Hale defended his act, saying: "At the end of the day, everybody who thought I was insensitive is a white person. I'm a black person. I know what racism is."

He said he would never be offensive to any person or make a negative joke - and was regularly booked as entertainment at Asian dinners.

"I have experienced racism personally," he said. "I have never had one Asian person come to me and say they didn't like a gag."

Mr Hale said it was a small minority of white people who had complained.

"These people are real fuddy duddies. They might be nice people at heart but they're not living in the real world.

"No offence to Prof Husband, but he should stick to being a professor and I'll stick to being a comedian."

Some of the 150 delegates from businesses throughout Bradford who were at the conference at the Jarvis Bankfield Hotel, Bingley, were reported to be rankled by some of the jokes.

Prof Husband told the Telegraph & Argus after the conference yesterday that the act was more like a stand-up comedy performance than a serious contribution to the day.

He said: "It was hard to see that the comedian had thought through what was the educational content of what he was supposed to be offering."

Prof Husband conceded that not all the jokes were offensive but that he had shared his misgivings about the performance with organisers afterwards.

Simon Bray, Bradford TEC's marketing director, said Mr Hale came on just after lunch as a warm-up act for the audience before the conference's afternoon session.

"The overall impact was not what was planned but it certainly gave us cause to reflect on our own use of stereotypes for humour.

Fazal Hussain, president of the Asian Business Forum, was also at the conference and said: "I only saw part of Mr Hale's act and from what I heard there wasn't anything wrong with it."

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