Hey, England! The recent discovery of five prostitutes' bodies has you jittery, upset, and dreading the thought of what is quickly looking to be a 21st century Jack the Ripper in your midsts. The British Comedy Awards should cheer you up—presenter Oliver Stone, take it away:

HOLLYWOOD director Oliver Stone has shocked a celebrity crowd with an off-colour joke about the murders of five suspected sex workers in eastern England, as it was reported women's clothing had been found near where some of the bodies had been dumped. [...]

"It's great to be back in England. I feel like Jack The Ripper days are back. Nothing ever changes here."

The stunned crowd responded with jeers, gasps and boos, with one audience member quoted as saying the remark was in "unbelievably bad taste".

Are we going soft if we feel kind of badly for the guy? Mere hours before World Trade Center is completely shut of the Golden Globes, Stone manages to draw jeers from a huge crowd gathered for the express purpose of celebrating laughter. In England. Luckily for Stone, Sacha Baron Cohen was the next presenter, and the waves of hysterical laughter generated by his in-character Borat monologue about how the fashionable clothes of murdered Kazahk prostitutes are always taken home for use by their sisters quickly drowned out any memory of the director's shocking gaffe.

• Serial killer joke stuns crowd [News.com.au]