The Phillip Schofield affair is the biggest scandal to hit ITV in a generation and Ms McCall’s ongoing silence no longer holds, says Dan Wootton
Dan Wootton says silence among ITV execs no longer holds
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They say the cover up is almost always worse than the crime.
And while Phillip Schofield insists there was nothing illegal about his improper sexual relationship with a teenage This Morning runner, more than 30 years his junior – who he first met at 15-years-old, before getting him a job on the legendary ITV daytime show – the lengths the broadcaster’s bosses went to stop the public knowing the facts seems to demonstrate an extraordinary lack of corporate judgement.
The TV industry is still recovering from the shockwaves of the first part of my exclusive interview with Eamonn Holmes on last night’s show.
Tonight, he goes even further, calling the broadcaster a den of iniquity and specifically targeting the woke Chief Executive Carolyn McCall, who happily gets rid of presenters who she doesn’t agree with politically, but allowed this scandal to develop on her watch…
But tonight I have obtained a bombshell email that suggests Ms McCall was warned about what was going on.
The message, written by a former This Morning staff member, was sent to McCall and Julian Bellamy, the managing director of ITV Studios, which makes This Morning, on February 10, 2020.
It reads in part…
“With the current rumours and accusations swirling around about Phillip Schofield…why is he still on our screens? Why have ITV not suspended him pending an internal inquiry?
“I would have thought in this day and age that a mainstream broadcaster such as ITV ought to be seen to be doing all it can to deal with issues like this, find out where the truth lies and, in the meantime, suspend those who the rumours concern?”
In addition, it included a link to a YouTube video, which now has nearly two million views, detailing the history of the relationship between Schofield and his young colleague, including purported social media contact between the pair and a number of photographs of them together socially and at work at ITV.
The former finished the email saying: “Come on ITV – it's time to take action and do the responsible thing. I find this all frankly disgusting.”
Now when I went to ITV’s press office – which Eamonn branded the ‘ministry of lies’ in my GB News interview last night ¬– about the email today, they refused to comment and instead referred me to this previous statement.
“ITV can confirm that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in early 2020 ITV investigated.”
Well, I’m sorry that is no longer good enough. And MPs will be demanding answers when an ITV executive appears before a select committee on Tuesday.
Especially given the new revelation tonight from the Daily Mail tonight of claims that the runner was given a pay off when he left the company.
This is the biggest scandal to hit ITV in a generation and Ms McCall’s ongoing silence no longer holds.