The chain of events that led to the resignation of Peter Fincham, controller of BBC1, were laid bare in a report by Will Wyatt CBE, a former executive at the corporation.

Stephen Lambert, creative director of RDF, the production company which made the ill-fated film, also resigned in the wake of Mr Wyatt's investigation into why Mr Fincham told journalists the programme would show the Queen "storming out" of a photoshoot with photographer Annie Leibovitz.

Mr Wyatt's 21-page report, entitled "Investigation into 'A Year with the Queen'", contains a detailed timeline of failings in the operations of both the BBC and RDF.

He concluded: "It is worth emphasising that I do not believe that anyone consciously set out to defame or misrepresent the Queen in the tape which was prepared for the BBC One season launch.

"Nor was there ever a possibility that the misleading sequence could have been included in the finished documentary to be broadcast by the BBC.

"That said, the incident reveals misjudgements, poor practice and ineffective systems as well, of course, as the usual helping of bad luck that often accompanies such sorry affairs."

Mr Wyatt said RDF edited footage of the Queen "in a cavalier fashion" for a promotional tape to be shown at a sales convention in Cannes.

He wrote: "The edit made it appear that the Queen walked out of photo shoot, when she did not.

"RDF sent this tape with other footage for use in the BBC launch tape without checking it.

"Red Bee Media, which compiled the launch tape for the BBC, did not show their work to RDF in spite of being asked several times.

"The BBC signing off procedures for the launch tape did not include it being checked by anyone working on the series."

It emerged in Mr Wyatt's report that the first documented mention of the Queen "storming off" was in an e-mail from a BBC producer, reporting a briefing he had received from RDF.

"This note went to the channel controller and the RDF executive producer; the RDF executive producer never challenged it," Mr Wyatt said.

"The RDF-supplied material in the launch tape appeared to corroborate this error and the channel controller pointed it up at the event.

"No-one in the channel team spotted the news potential of what the tape appeared to show."

In the aftermath of Mr Fincham's announcement, when it became clear that he had erroneously suggested that the trailer for the programme would show the Queen “walking out in a huff”, the corporation had reacted too slowly, Mr Wyatt said.

"Those handling the issue were slow to appreciate the magnitude and import of the mistake and consequent press story and failed to involve enough people swiftly enough.

"The decision, taken with the Buckingham Palace press office, to delay a correcting statement until the following morning was a mistake by the BBC.

"RDF’s realisation that their mis-edited footage was the cause of the problem was either not passed clearly enough or not passed at all to the BBC, which became aware of it from its own inquiries the following afternoon."

Mr Wyatt also asked why the BBC did not act to examine why the misunderstanding had occured, despite the fact that the corporation's own news channels were running the story.

He wrote: "Throughout the morning on the day after the launch, BBC News was running with a story that two or three senior BBC staff had known since the previous evening was wrong. It took too long to for anyone to address this and to ask, "How did this happen in the first place?"

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