The boss of ITV has branded Phillip Schofield's relationship with a younger employee 'deeply inappropriate' as she faced questions on the recent scandal.
Dame Carolyn McCall has appeared before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday (June 14) to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling after Schofield left as host of This Morning.
The 61-year-old chief executive is facing questions from MPs alongside ITV managing director Kevin Lygo and general counsel and company secretary Kyla Mullins about the This Morning row during Wednesday morning's Culture, Media and Sport Committee session.
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It comes after Schofield, 61, resigned from ITV and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an "unwise but not illegal" affair with a younger male colleague on the show. Since his resignation, This Morning has been plagued with allegations of "toxicity".
While being quizzed during the session, McCall said the "imbalance of power" made Schofield's relationship "deeply inappropriate". She said: "And we have policies that say that very clearly," she says.
However, she says they had no evidence of the relationship. "It was repeatedly denied by both individuals," she said, adding that no one in the team said they knew anything either.
When asked how long she knew about rumours relating to Schofield's affair, McCall said she'd been looking into what was happening in December 2019, but when Schofield came out in February 2020 the rumours intensified.
That was the first time things "got really febrile", she said. Mullins also echoed this, saying "we first became aware" of speculation that was published in a newspaper article on December 6 2019.
She says the article spoke a lot about the relationship between This Morning presenters Schofield and Holly Willoughby but also referenced Schofield's "PA and personal runner moving to a different programme despite a previous close relationship with him".
She added that when ITV's head of daytime and head of production "spoke to person X" to find out if any of the rumours were true they received "a categorical no".
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