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Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.com Michelle Keegan got back to work on the set of a mystery project over the weekend – four…
ITV is set to ban under-18s from working on This Morning as the broadcaster seeks to roll out new reforms in the wake of the Phillip Schofield scandal.
According to the Sun, bosses at the channel are also planning to crackdown on opportunities for ‘nepo babies’, as they look to make it harder for staff to help friends and family members out with jobs at the company.
The move comes into force after former This Morning presenter Schofield, 62, dramatically quit the show after he admitted to having lied about an affair with a much younger colleague in May 2023.
The man, who was just 15 when he met the presenter for the first time and who he helped land a coveted job as a runner on This Morning at the age of 19, started working for the show in 2019.
A romantic relationship between the pair began when the man was 20, after which he moved to another ITV daytime show, Loose Women. He later left the channel with a separate payout.
Schofield has barely been seen on TV since the affair came to light and has subsequently refused to take part in an ITV probe and parliamentary inquiry into the relationship.
Former This Morning presenter Schofield, 62, dramatically quit the show after he admitted to having lied about an affair with a much younger colleague in May 2023.
An insider told the Sun that ITV ‘doesn’t want anything like the Schofield scandal happening again’ and is striving to create a safe work environment for everyone (file image)
An insider told the Sun that ITV ‘doesn’t want anything like the Schofield scandal happening again’ and is striving to create a safe work environment for everyone.
An outdated career site shows that the channel was at one point hiring teenagers younger then 16, with one advert for a weeklong ‘Experience Programme’ targeted towards 14-17 year olds.
The programme is still running and the age requirement has now been bumped up to 18, as stated on the official web page.
Furthermore, it was revealed last year that all staff at the broadcaster had been told to declare any workplace relationships.
Schofield separated from his wife Stephanie, whom he had been married to for 27 years, in 2020 after coming out as gay.
Following his resignation from This Morning, ITV organised a review into the scandal and the ‘toxic culture’ on the show last year.
A report by Jane Mulcahy KC found that staff still feared speaking out on such matters as it could hurt their careers.
Some 48 people were interviewed for the probe and of these, just one said that they knew about the relationship before May 2023.
The report also found that ITV did not cover-up the scandal and that station bosses had made ‘considerable efforts’ to discover the truth in 2019 – four years before the affair broke. The external review found that the channel was ‘unable to uncover the relevant evidence’ until Schofield’s own admission.
In her report, Ms Mulcahy said today: ‘I have no doubt that senior management are absolutely wedded to the importance of an open culture.
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby hug as he comes out as gay ‘This Morning’ TV show in 2020 before the pandemic
Phil and Holly pictured on This Morning two decades ago, in 2004
Phllip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on the television show, ‘Dancing On Ice’ in February 2023
‘But this culture is still not filtering down to junior employees, many of whom remain convinced that to speak out will have a detrimental impact on their careers.’
In a BBC interview, father-of-two Schofield insisted he had not groomed the young man after meeting him at a stage school.
Confessing to be ‘utterly broken and ashamed,’ he added: ‘We were mates, and then in my dressing room one day, something happened, which obviously I will regret for ever, for him and for me – mostly him – but that happened maybe four or five times over the next few months.
‘I know it’s unforgivable. But we weren’t boyfriends. We weren’t in a relationship. I was really in a mess with my own sexuality at the time, and it just happened.’
Schofield also said the man landed his This Morning role ‘on his own merit… because he was very good at his job’. He added: ‘Everybody loved him. He worked very hard.’
In February, it was revealed that the presenter paid his former lover a six-figure sum in return for signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) which means the younger man is prevented from ever talking about their relationship.
A source familiar with the NDA has told the Mail on Sunday the full details of the affair could bring further pain for him should they ever be revealed.
The man – referred to only as Person X by ITV during its investigation – was represented by top London law firm Mishcon de Reya in the negotiations surrounding the NDA.
MailOnline have approached ITV and Philip Schofield for a comment.
