Norton quitting radio show
GRAHAM NORTON has announced he is stepping down from hosting his weekend shows on Virgin Radio.
He joined the station in 2021 following a decade on BBC Radio 2.
Norton, 60, made the surprise announcement during yesterday’s show, saying he wanted to have his “weekends back” after 13 years of presenting.
He told his listeners: “Now the show isn’t quite the normal show today because I have a bit of an announcement to make – I’m leaving weekends here at Virgin radio.”
Norton said he will not be leaving Virgin
entirely, adding: “I’ll still be kind of popping up on the station from time to time but my regular Saturday and Sundays, I’m stepping away.”
He continued: “I’ve worked weekends between here and the old place for 13 years and my life has changed a bit so I just want my weekends back.
“So really the next two shows, today and tomorrow, are me just saying thank you to you all for listening.”
He said fellow Irish presenter Angela Scanlon will fill in his 9.30am to 12.30pm slot for the next few weeks before a permanent presenter is announced.
FOR more than five years, Rhianon Bragg was tormented at the hands of her former partner Gareth Wyn Jones. The mother of four was incessantly stalked – during and after she ended the relationship – abused emotionally and physically, harassed and controlled. It came to a head when she was held hostage for eight hours at gunpoint.
Only then was Jones detained and taken to court. Later the Crown Prosecution Service would admit it had enough evidence three months earlier to charge the former mechanic for his campaign of abuse against Rhianon.
Last week he was released from prison having served just four and a half years in custody to serve the next five years of his sentence in the community, despite a parole board panel finding it would not be safe to do so and that he had never accepted culpability for his crimes.
Since he was sentenced in 2020, it has emerged that not only was Rhianon a victim at the hands of Jones, but she was also failed by the authorities there to protect her and her family. Jones was arrested three times before he held her at gunpoint, his weapons were confiscated during the investigation at that time, but then incorrectly returned to him.
Even after he was detained, Rhianon was dealt another blow when it emerged that the Ministry of Justice accidentally sent Jones intimate details of the anguish her family suffered because of his horrifying campaign. This was in a report that included her mental health assessment and diagnosis.
While Jones has been released on licence there are conditions in place to protect Rhianon and her family. However, Rhianon says she feels vulnerable living on a smallholding.
“Yes he will be on licence, but you don’t have to look far to see people breaking licence conditions,” she said.
She now wants more consideration into the outcome of the parole board assessment and the orders in place when these dangerous offenders are released.
Rhianon is hoping to raise awareness of domestic abuse and coercive control.
“I was targeted straight away before the relationship even started, I can see that now. It wasn’t a relationship – I know that now – but I don’t know what else to call it.”
Rhianon first met Jones days after she returned to Caernarfon in 2013 after a breakdown of her marriage and the recent death of her father and says she honestly thought he was just being helpful and friendly.
“I’m absolutely certain I was targeted from the off. It was several months before I realised he was interested in me romantically. That’s to do with my low selfesteem. Low self-esteem makes you a really good target.”
She said when they did become a couple it seemed “too good to be true”.
“You go from an unhappy previous relationship, then seemingly find someone supportive and kind. Perpetrators don’t arrive and say, ‘I’m going to be a really violent, nasty person, I’m going to threaten to kill you, and be violently abusive – do you fancy years of that?’ He portrayed himself as something that wasn’t true.”
Rhianon thinks Jones started preparing for the abuse before the relationship had become romantic, saying he had gone around lying to people that she was “mentally incapacitated”.
“You think ‘well what’s the point of that?’ but when you step back and look at him as a perpetrator and the steps of abuse, as and when things started to get worse then people are going to step away, aren’t they. They’re going to think ‘oh well she’s not quite right in the head.’ It puts a wedge in. It was very much paving the way from the outset for his future abuse.”
She said he started to isolate her from the people she knew nearby as well as having dramatic mood swings which often resulted in him ending their relationship, before starting it back up again the next day – sometimes hours – later. It was at this point that he started to threaten suicide too.
Rhianon, who has never spoken fully about the impact the abuse had on her children, said that it was around this time that she noticed their behaviour changing.
“Anyone who wants to judge me for not reporting what was happening at the time, they will never judge me as harshly as I judge myself. I’ve been told by so many professional people that it wasn’t my fault but that doesn’t take away from how I feel.
“When you’re living with that constant threat, walking on eggshells, your anxiety is through the roof. If you’re in that situation and you report it, it could put all five of us at risk so to report it may have been the end for all five of us.
“The population needs to understand how risky even going to the authorities can be in that moment.”
Jones never moved into Rhianon’s home, they never got married and he wasn’t the father of her four children, but