ITV instructs barrister to conduct external review into Phillip Schofield affair

ITV has instructed a barrister to carry out an external review of the facts following Phillip Schofield’s statement confessing to lying about an affair with a colleague and his departure from This Morning.

The programme and broadcaster have both been thrown into turmoil after Schofield, 61, admitted to an ‘unwise but not illegal’ affair with a junior male colleague.

In a letter seen by the PA news agency, and sent to Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer, DCMS Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage and Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes, ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall said: “You will have seen the significant media coverage concerning Phillip Schofield.

“As you would expect we take the matter extremely seriously and have reviewed our own records over the weekend. These show that when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate in late 2019/early 2020 ITV investigated.

“Both parties were questioned then and both categorically and repeatedly denied the rumours, as did Phillip’s then agency YMU. In addition, ITV spoke to a number of people who worked on the This Morning and wider Daytime team and were not provided with, and did not find any evidence of a relationship beyond hearsay and rumour.

“Given the ongoing rumours, we continued to ask questions of both parties, who both continued to deny the rumours, including as recently as this month. There has been a lot of inaccuracy in the reporting so I thought it would be useful to set out some facts.”

The letter comes after sources close to Schofield’s former lover, who was later moved to another ITV daytime show, Loose Women, say that he was never spoken to by ITV.

On Tuesday the channel will sit before the DCMS Select Committee where it will be grilled by MPs about This Morning’s alleged toxic culture.