LONDON (Reuters) – The head of ITV said the UK broadcaster had done all it could to try to confirm rumours of an affair involving star presenter Phillip Schofield, but found no evidence of a relationship she called “deeply inappropriate”.
Schofield, 61, a TV fixture in Britain for more than three decades, resigned in May after admitting lying about a relationship with a young employee on his daytime show “This Morning”.
British lawmakers questioned ITV Chief Executive Carolyn McCall on Wednesday, asking if it was was possible that the broadcaster and entertainment company had turned a blind eye to the rumours because the show was so successful.
Denying that allegation, McCall said Schofield and the young worker were asked on several occasions over a period of time about the rumours, which emerged in early 2020. Both denied they were true.
Additionally, management was not given any evidence to merit carrying out a more in-depth investigation. “We had no legal reasons to go any further,” she said.
McCall called the relationship “deeply inappropriate” due to the imbalance of power. ITV has commissioned an independent review into the affair and if it finds the company should have acted differently, it will learn from that, she said.
“As we see it today, our understanding and our information so far, is that we could not have done this differently,” she said, noting that ITV already had processes in place that allowed employees to report matters of concern.
At the time of his resignation, Scofield said he was “so very, very sorry” for lying about a relationship he called “unwise but not illegal”.
ITV is Britain’s biggest free-to-air commercial broadcaster but also a public service broadcaster, meaning it is intended to provide information to viewers and does not exist purely for commercial purposes.
(Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by John Stonestreet)
