The managing director of the ABC, Mark Scott, has been forced to make a public apology to the family of Annabel Catt after the comedy show Summer Heights High mocked the drug death of a high school student named "Annabel" in this week's episode.
The Catt family released a statement saying they accept Mr Scott's apology and his offer to insert a disclaimer before future episodes.
"The Catt family has accepted an apology from the Managing Director of the ABC, Mr Mark Scott,'' the family said.
'He has apologised for the distress and hurt that the screening of this week's episode of Summer Heights High has caused us and for the production team not warning us of the content of the program.''
"It has been agreed that prior to the screening of future episodes there will be a slide stating that the characters in the program are fictional.''
The famuily declined to reveal the contents of a package they received from the ABC.
Mr Scott made a personal phone call to the family this morning to apologise for the show's contents but he has refused to pull or edit the remaining episodes of the series which will continue to have the "Annabel" storyline running through it.
"The ABC and the producer sincerely apologise for this extremely unfortunate coincidence, and in hindsight, we feel we should have alerted the Catt family to the situation in advance of the broadcast," Mr Scott said in a statement.
"We apologise that this has caused further distress to the family."
"Eleven days after the production had been completed Annabel Catt’s tragic death occurred on February 18," he said.
"The ABC became aware of the horrible coincidence, that one of the fictional characters from Summer Heights High shared the same first name. Unfortunately, as the series was already completely filmed and the production closed down, it was impossible to alter the name of the character."
He said that the ABC would make it clear before each program that there is no link between Annabel Catt and the fictional character Annabel Dickson.
"The program will run as scheduled over the next five weeks and the storyline concerning Annabel Dickson runs through each of the episodes."
The disclaimer will read: "The characters and events depicted in the drama Summer Heights High are wholly fictional. The characters bear no resemblance to any person living or dead."
Ms Catt, a dance teacher, died after taking two tablets at the Good Vibrations music festival on February 17 this year.
An ensuing police investigation found the tablets were not ecstasy but paramethoxyamphetamine, or PMA, a toxic hallucinogen responsible for at least six other deaths in Australia since 1995.
In the episode of Summer Heights High, a student named "Annabel Dickson" overdoses from ecstasy. The girl is later referred to as a "slut" by a drama teacher called Greg Gregson, played by Chris Lilley. Mr Lilley plays a number of characters in the mockumentary series.
The drama teacher then develops a musical about the student to "get to the truth of Annabel".
Songs played by the teacher feature the lyrics "Annabel, Annabel you're a slut" and "she's a party girl, with a bad habit ... for drugs."
Ms Catt's older brother, Antony, told The Manly Daily the show had "opened a massive wound" for his family.
"Shock, disbelief, anger - I could use a lot of adjectives to describe how I felt," he said to the paper.
"We really having trouble dealing with this," Antony said today.
In another episode in the series, the character of Mr Gregson points to an area in the school and comments: "We had a girl raped behind them [the bushes].
"So we had them removed and the kids have done an anti-rape mural, which is nice."
Mr Lilley has previously said the series was "probably going to shock people and people might feel a bit uncomfortable and that's what I really like about this show".
Summer Heights High has produced good ratings but also attracted criticism for some of its humour.
