Kyle called TV guest a ‘serial liar’ before his death, coroner reveals
JEREMY KYLE, the television presenter, called guest Steve Dymond a “serial liar” and asked “if anyone had a shovel”, a coroner has revealed.
The ITV star made the comments during the programme featuring the 63-year-old, who is suspected to have taken his own life seven days after the recording in May 2019.
Jason Pegg, the Hampshire coroner, laid out the remarks made by Mr Kyle in his ruling stating that Mr Kyle would be an interested person in the inquest because “he may have caused or contributed” to Mr Dymond’s death.
A preliminary hearing has been told that Mr Dymond died of a morphine overdose and a heart problem at his home in Portsmouth.
He had “failed” a lie detector test for the programme to show whether he had cheated on his ex-fiancée Jane Callaghan, from Gosport. Following his death the episode was not broadcast.
Mr Pegg states in his ruling made in July that from footage “it is apparent that Jeremy Kyle was aware that the deceased had previously been unable to appear on The Jeremy Kyle Show having been diagnosed with depression”.
“Jeremy Kyle adopted an approach where he called the deceased a ‘serial liar’; that he ‘would not trust him with a chocolate button’; and made a comment: ‘Has anyone got a shovel?’”
The ruling quotes Mr Dymond’s son, Carl Woolley, who says of his father: “He had been humiliated, taken for a mug and pounced on by the presenter.”
The ruling also quotes Mr Dymond’s brother Leslie Dymond, who says his sibling phoned him from a taxi after filming the episode.
The report states: “During that conversation, the deceased told his brother, ‘He had endured a terrible time and could not go on living.’
“In subsequent conversations Leslie Dymond recalls his brother stating ‘Jeremy Kyle had been in his face’.”
Mr Pegg concludes: “I am satisfied that the evidence potentially goes beyond mere criticism of Jeremy Kyle and that acts or omissions of Jeremy Kyle may have caused or contributed to the death of Stephen Dymond.
“Accordingly, I deem Jeremy Kyle to be an interested person in this case.”
Counsel for Mr Dymond’s family, Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC, told a preinquest review hearing in Winchester last week: “The inquest must consider how he came to be on the show in the first place considering his pre-show assessment, and it was known he had been on anti-depressant medication and had stopped it to go on the show.”
She said that Mr Kyle was given briefing notes about Mr Dymond’s situation and had made reference during the show to him stopping his medication.
A full inquest into Mr Dymond’s death is set to be held next summer.