ITV instructs barrister to review facts around Phillip Schofield exit | ITV plc

ITV has instructed a barrister to carry out an external review of the facts after Phillip Schofield’s departure from This Morning.

In a letter seen by the PA news agency, the ITV chief executive, 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 was sent to the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer; the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, Caroline Dinenage; and the Ofcom chief executive, Melanie Dawes.

More details soon …