ITV HIT BY KYLE SHOW ‘SUICIDE’
Father found dead week after studio lie detector test ++ Programme taken off air ++ All episodes cut from catch-up site
ITV was plunged into crisis last night by the death of a father who was ‘humiliated’ on The Jeremy Kyle Show. Steven Dymond died in a suspected suicide a week after filming an episode of the controversial daytime chat show. The 62-year -old had gone on the programme with his former girlfriend.
He is said to have been left devastated after being confronted in the TV studio about allegations of infidelity.
He was also asked to sit a lie detector test, a regular feature of the show . According to friends, he was labelled a liar after he failed the test.
Mr Dymond, who had just found out he was a grandfather, called his friends in tears after filming the show , which had been due to air yesterday.
In a dramatic move, ITV halted the scheduled broadcast, suspended filming of the
show and removed all past episodes from its catch-up website.
MPs called for the show, which has been on air since 2005, to be scrapped because it exploited vulnerable people. ‘TV companies have a duty of care to the people who take part in their programmes,’ said Damian Collins, who chairs the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee.
‘Clearly it would be totally unacceptable for a vulnerable person to be exploited in the making of the show, and then left to pick up the pieces by themselves.’ Simon Hart, who is a member of the same committee, said: ‘Jeremy Kyle is car-crash TV which revels in people’s terrible misfortune and sometimes their vulnerabilities.
‘We don’t know what’s happened in this case but people need to be looked after during and after the show.
‘It’s beholden on TV producers and management to satisfy themselves that people are fully prepared for what these programmes have in store for them and that people are properly looked after.’
Charles Walker, the Tory vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention, said he would be surprised if the show returned to the air. ‘exposing quite vulnerable people to ridicule is really not compatible with the mores of the second decade of the 21st century,’ he added. ‘On reflection ITV would be best advised just to stop it. It’s a very, very unattractive TV show and I’m surprised it’s gone on so long.’
The controversy follows the deaths of two contestants on ITV’s Love Island. Sophie Gradon, 32, who appeared on series two in 2016, was found dead last June, while Mike Thalassitis, 26, who took part a year later, died in March.
After a review into their deaths, the station promised to provide ‘bespoke training’ to all future contestants and ‘offer therapy to all Islanders and not only those that reach out to us’. Shelley, a friend of Mr Dymond who did not want to give her surname, said he had moved into her flat in Portsmouth on a tenancy basis after splitting up from his girlfriend in February.
She said the digger driver and father-ofone had called her in tears after he filming, adding: ‘He was sobbing down the phone. He said “It’s all gone wrong” and said he had failed the lie detector.’
She discovered Mr Dymond’s body in his room in her flat a week later, last Thursday.
The incident is likely to lead to serious questions for ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall. ITV said the episode featuring Mr Dymond
would be submitted for a review due to the ‘seriousness of this event’. A spokesman said: ‘Everyone at ITV and The Jeremy Kyle Show is shocked and saddened at the news of the death of a participant in the show a week after the recording of the episode they featured in and our thoughts are with their family and friends.
‘ITV will not screen the episode in which they featured. Given the seriousness of this event, ITV has also decided to suspend both filming and broadcasting of The Jeremy Kyle Show with immediate effect in order to give it time to conduct a review of this episode of the show.
‘The Jeremy Kyle Show has significant and detailed duty of care processes in place for contributors pre-, during and post- show which have been built up over 14 years. We are reviewing this episode and not making any further comment until this review is complete.’
A source added that Mr Dymond was ‘calm and collected’ when he left the show and that he had not been ordered off the stage.
A spokesman from Hampshire Police said last night: ‘I can confirm that we were called at 1.24pm on Thursday 9 May following the discovery of a body of a man in his 60s at an address in Portsmouth.
‘The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file is being prepared for the coroner.’