to think it matters whether Phillip Schofield met the runner when he was 12 or 15.

[couldanyoneexplain]

I've seen and heard both.
Obviously getting someone a job at 18 or 19 with exploitative intentions is sleazy in the extreme. 15 is underage and deeply concerning, but 12 is deep into paedo territory.

"i always think these stories come out when there are other things going on that we, the minions need distracting from"

Completely agree.

Funny how the COVID-19 Inquiry results are coming up soon

@LifeIsPainHighness Jones has clearly stated that the video was made in 2014. So the boy would have been 18/19.

@Blossomtoes no, the boy in question did not ask PS to follow him - PS said "a friend" asked him to follow the 15yo boy. My guess is that the "friend" was the boy's mentor at the 2Faced Theatre.

I find it a wee bit of an over reaction.

I had a work place affair (shock horror)

And when that ended I dated a 21 year old and I was 46 .

All above board and completely consensual. Put a spring in my step I can tell you .

This is ridiculous. ps has done nothing millions of people haven't done before him. He's lost his job , reputation and friends . Over what actually amounts to nothing more than a fling at work . It's getting ridiculous. Leave the man alone now . And the other man . It's becoming a circus . And PS needs to stop apologising now - the only person he needs to apologise to is his wife . The rest is no one else's business.

'Concerns around the safeguarding of a young perrson'

What does that mean exactly? What concerns and what safeguarding.

@AnyaMarx you're completely ignoring the issue particular to this case: grooming a child. You presumably met the 21yo you dated as adults; and perhaps you didn't have the huge power imbalance that PS had. In PS's case, he met the boy when the boy was 12/15yo, followed him on Twitter when the boy was 15, kept in touch with "career advice", seemingly helped the boy get a job at itv, then began a sexual relationship with him when he was of legal age. PS was very rich & powerful, the boy was not. When things broke down, the young man was removed from his job and moved to another programme.

It does matter and I think the defence of homophobia nursing issues by Schofield could be a real disservice to gay men in general. If grooming has actually happened then this is the issue that has to be to the forefront of any enquiry and a blanket defence of 'large age gaps being common in gay men relationships' won't wash.

PS is playing a blinder now, giving interviews, hinting at suicide, citing homophobia and it's all working to turn the tide and get the public back on his side. It's all part of the media circus and he knows how to play the game plus he has the funds to hire a great PR firm, lawyers etc. He knows exactly what he's doing.
But the issue remains that this looks a lot like grooming. And the fact that his 'best friend' Simon Schofield is someone he met when he was as a teenager too and is the person who introduced him to the runner is strange. All seems like a bit too coincidental.
My question would be if it's so 'normal' and innocent to follow the runner on social media when he was a teenager and offer him career advice, get him work experience etc, how many other young people did he help in this way? Surely other young people have asked him for similar help to get into TV? Why did he single out this one individual for this sort of help and attention?
There is more to this than meets the eye but he is doing well to deflect everyone's attention from it and garner the public's sympathy.

I think it depends on the level of contact between them from when they met when he was a child up till when the affair began. If it was a one off meet or it was professional with nothing intentional on PS' part, and nothing happened until the point 2 adult men met again and had an affair, then I will reserve my judgement on Phillip till I find that out. He's being compared to Jimmy Saville and that is disgusting. As far as any of us know he's done nothing comparable to that. If worse details come out then I'll change my mind, but what's to say that there is?

I don’t think he’s played a ‘blinder’ in the least, I don’t think he has done himself any favours at all with that interview.
Second only to ‘Prince’ Andrew’s car crash interview.

Well it certainly seems to be working to get him public sympathy.
But to me it seems a bit "the man doth protest too much"...

It IS homophobic. He's right.

I think this is a very sensible post.

Plenty of people are confidently claiming that grooming has happened but we haven't actually seen evidence of that.

To me, the fact that nothing happened until MM was 4 years older than the age of consent doesn't make it look like grooming. But if grooming messages are released, or if MM says that is what happened, I'll change my mind.

The Mail can also reveal Ms Flack avoided appearing on This Morning when Schofield was the host.
Whenever she wanted to do a segment about Love Island, she would request she did it on a Friday when he wasn't there.
A source who was close to the late star said: 'Caroline preferred to deal with the Friday gang.

Interesting.
I didn't like PS using her name in the interview.

The time stamp for the video is 2015.

Either way he is nowhere near being 12-15 years of age.

This total desperation for the runner to be a child when he wasn’t is fucking weird and creepy

Yes and when does a young person stop being young as normally it’s 18.

As an aside I’m not sure what people actually want ITV to investigate. There’s no grounds for investigation. A workplace affair between a senior and a junior is cause to raise eyebrows but no crime has been committed.

Gay men also are saddled with the stereotype of being pedophiles simply by being gay which is also why I think it all nods to homophobia.

I feel the same.

There’s no evidence of grooming - and giving someone cater advice isn’t grooming. Some of the posts accusing PS of grooming are actually offensive to REAL grooming victims. Think of Adam Johnson’s victim and all that she went through - THAT is grooming.

Schofield is proper playing the victim, whilst forgettin about the victim. What a scumbag.

I’d be interested to know people’s thoughts on the ex-ITV crowd putting their two pence in?

Eamon Holme, Carol McGriffin (?) etc.

They say the culture goes beyond Schofield - I looked at the Jeremy Kyle scandal and whistleblowers and wondered at the time an out the culture. Then they’ve 100% lied about not knowing about the affair - throwing PS under the bus. When Eamon gave reasons as to why they MUST have known.

I suspect some people at the top of ITV will be getting their P45’s soon.

Totally agree!!

I agree with you. That interview was excruciating! How dare he use CF’s name either? Too much!

I hope the whole TV celebrity fawning culture is scrutinised very carefully. I've never been comfortable with the excessive adoration that TV stars are given. It's bound to get to people's heads, on the other thread it was mentioned that crew aren't allowed to talk to 'talent'.

Apparently, there's a video clip of Holly W completely blanking a makeup artist as she walked past. This kind of behaviour leads to inflated egos and poor workplace employment practices. There's all this 'be kind' shite that the TV stars spout but they rarely practice what they preach.

Often turn a blind eye to such serious matters?