The Apprentice (UK series five)

Series Five of The Apprentice (UK), a British reality television series, was broadcast in the UK during 2009 from 25 March to 7 June on BBC One, and is the last series to feature Margaret Mountford as one of the advisors to Lord Sugar (then Sir Alan at time of broadcast), after announcing her decision to leave the role and continue her education. Auditions and interviews took place during July 2008 in London, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham, though the sixteenth candidate who secured a place on the show was forced to drop out before recording due to personal reasons, and thus could not be replaced. In total, fifteen candidates took part for this series, and the two teams were named Empire and Ignite, with Yasmina Siadatan winning the series.

Two new editions of specials that had featured during the previous series, were aired alongside the 2009 series during the final weeks - "The Final Five" on 3 June (followed broadcasting of Week 11), and "Why I Fired Them" on 5 June. In addition, the final episode was aired on 7 June due to ITV airing live coverage of the 2010 World Cup Group 6 qualifying match between England & Andorra on 10 June that year.

Key:

While the series ended up having fifteen candidates for this year's competition, it initially had sixteen. However, Adam Freeman, the sixteenth candidate, was forced to depart from the show before filming began, citing family reasons behind this. In the first episode, Alan Sugar described Freeman as a candidate who had "bottled it", but he later denied he had done so, and went on to describe his decision to leave as "the best decision I made in my life".

On 19 April 2009, it was reported that Mona Lewis had made homophobic statements during the filming of the series, and had offended Howard Ebison was openly gay. During the task to re-brand Margate, Lewis was reported to stated she wouldn't want her six-year-old son to meet a homosexual man, after Howard suggested the location become a gay resort. However, both candidates denied any allegation of homophobia, with Lewis stating she "wasn't homophobic, just boring".

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