Evans quits Top Gear as police probe sex assault claims
Hours after police launch assault probe, star walks out on struggling Top Gear
CHRIS EVANS quit Top Gear yesterday, only hours after police confirmed he was being investigated over claims he sexually assaulted a woman in the 1990s.
He announced he was leaving the BBC motoring show three hours after Scotland Yard said it was looking into a ‘non-recent’ allegation against the TV and radio star.
The announcement came after a former colleague claimed Evans had grabbed her breasts and exposed himself on a daily basis after she refused to sleep with him. The complaint was made to police six days before the latest series of Top Gear made its debut in May. Shortly after yesterday’s police statement Evans, 50 – one of the BBC’s best-paid presenters – wrote on Twitter that he was leaving Top Gear, which has suffered declining ratings. The BBC said he would not be replaced. Evans wrote: ‘Gave it my best shot but sometimes that’s not enough. The team are beyond brilliant, I wish them all the best.’ He said he would continue to present his Radio 2 breakfast show. The married father of three, who has not been arrested, is now likely to be questioned by detectives over the allegations.
Last month the alleged victim accused Evans of sexually assaulting her when they worked together while he was one of Britain’s biggest television stars and the host of Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast and BBC Radio 1’s breakfast show.
In a newspaper interview, she said: ‘Chris wanted an affair with me but I didn’t want to because he was with someone else at the time. So he sent me to Coventry. He told colleagues not to talk to me. It was bullying behaviour.
‘He often said I was c**p at my job and would sometimes grab my breasts. I became totally desensitised to his behaviour. He would scream, shout and swear at me.’
She told the Heat Street website her complaints were ignored by his production team at the time, leaving her traumatised and on anti-depressants.
She added: ‘He used to get his penis out every time I saw him. He’d either just get it out, or he’d walk into a room naked. It was pretty much every single day. It was relentless.’
The woman said she made a statement about Evans’s behaviour to a lawyer five years ago. But she reported the matter to police only on May 23 after the article appeared in a national newspaper on May 8.
She added: ‘In my experience, sometimes he exposed himself in front of other people. With me, he would do it practically every single day.
‘He’d torture people who didn’t do what he wanted them to do. Looking back I should have left sooner but I stayed because I had to pay the rent.’ A Metropolitan Police spokesman said an allegation had been made ‘by a woman against a man, and relates to incidents in Tower Hamlets in the 1990s. There have been no arrests and no person has been interviewed under caution’.
Evans has previously admitted exposing himself during meetings of his company Ginger Group Media. He said in 2005: ‘I haven’t done it for a while, but I will do it again... If you get your willy out, it’s the funniest thing in the world.’
A spokesman for the BBC and a spokesman for Evans last night declined to comment.
But he has denied recent claims of bullying behind the scenes on Top Gear, calling them a ‘witch-hunt’.
His departure from the programme after only one year of a three-year deal means it will be up to former Friends star Matt LeBlanc to save the show.
The American actor was signed up to present only one series of the show but has proved far more popular with fans than Evans, who was lambasted for his ‘shouty’ presenting style.
Many viewers said they would prefer the show with just LeBlanc at the helm, and BBC bosses are said to be keen to secure a new deal with him.
Sunday’s series finale drew an all-time low of 1.9million viewers, far below the average audience of 6.49million during the last series with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
The decision to stand down was apparently Evans’s but a BBC source said discussions on the matter began last week.
‘He wanted an affair with me’