There have been thousands upon thousands of column inches, both from the mainstream and social media, being taken up by the Phillip Schofield case. Schofield a man who has cultivated a Mr Nice Guy image over the course of decades ever since he first appeared as a BBC children’s television presenter, now has his career in ruins and has been forced out of the ITV channel, primarily because of his own behaviour and choices.
There’s a strong element in the stories that have come out about him of people getting their revenge on him. This might well be coming from those who had negative encounters with him whilst they were on their way up and Schofield was also in an upward career trajectory. If nothing else comes out about Phillip Schofield’s behaviour and lifestyle then it certainly shows the truth in the old saying ‘be nice to people on your way up as you’ll meet them again on the way down’. Maybe those who Mr Schofield had done down on his way to the top, never forgot the way that they were treated and decided that revenge was a dish best eaten cold and feasting deeply now, especially as the chinks started to appear in Phillip Schofield’s armour. Some people are unassailable when they are at the height of their careers and that situation doesn’t just apply to the media and entertainment fields, but to any area of human endeavour, medicine, politics, journalism, art and much more. For example Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, for different reasons, bestrode British politics like colossi, sweeping all before them, until they didn’t and they either became victims of their own hubris and egos or were brought down by political situations or enemies that they had not planned on encountering.
Phillip Schofield has certainly done himself no favours with his conduct towards his wife and family, his male lover or those he worked with. I don’t like the man as I think that he comes over as smarmy and false. On the odd occasion I’ve seen him on This Morning, which ain’t that often, he has reminded me, with his overly concerned emoting, a bit like a Music Hall star who had to use heavy make up, gaudy costumes and powerful singing in order to project their image and their unamplified voice, to the back of an often raucous crowd. Phillip Schofield’s image, as I saw it, was rather heavy on the emoting-with-their-guests shtick.
As I said I don’t like the man and I don’t like his performance, it’s not for me and I’m loathe to defend him in any way. This whole case revolves to a large extent on whether or not Schofield was honest with those he had had professional dealings with and also his family.
This case has certainly enlivened the ‘online paedo hunter’ types who are convinced that there is something iffy about Schofield, but these particular types of obsessives also often believe that the entirety of Britain’s broadcast media is a nest of nonces. They are coming out with some outrageous stuff now that could land them in serious legal trouble if what they are saying turns out to be bollocks.
These commentators are now openly accusing Phillip Schofield of being a nonce and that’s a very dangerous thing to do if there is no concrete evidence of that being the case. The British libel laws are not something that you want to tangle with and I’ll tell you why. Back in the late 80’s as part of my job working the courts as a court reporter I got to meet an awful lot of police officers, court staff, lawyers and especially crime journalists. Chatting to these journalists taught me a lot about what can and can’t be said legally and the standards of proof needed to make a story stick without legal danger. One particular conversation sticks in my mind. We were chatting in a pub about Jimmy Savile who at that time was very much alive. The reporters were regaling each other and myself with what they knew about the man. None of what they said about him concerned child sex abuse and I think that if these journos had known about this they would have spoken of it, the vast majority of the scurrilous chatting was about his general creepiness around women and his penchant for necrophilia (which was not a criminal offence at the time). None of this could be published because although there was just enough evidence found to make the story believable or which pointed in the direction of Savile being a predator, but there was not enough to prove it, even to the standard of proof of the civil libel court which is ‘a balance of probabilities’. There was certainly not enough information about Savile at the time to convict him on the criminal standard of proof which is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Any paper that had published stories about Savile based on the amount of credible and admissible evidence available at the time would have been financially ruined.
Whilst there is the possibility that Schofield’s past might be more murky than the information that has come out so far, some people are putting two and two together and making five. For example, some people have said why did not Paul Schofield comment publicly when his brother was arrested on noncing charges? The problem with this, as I understand it, is that if he had made any material statement before this case had come to trial then he might have been in deep deep doodoo legally because of the Contempt of Court Acts (CCA). A person has to be really careful about what they say about active court cases, it’s easy to slip up and break the CCA and I’ve seen a number of citizen journalist types do this and sometimes get in serious legal aggro because of it. Phillip Schofield could have tainted the case against his brother and the case could have ended in a forced not guilty verdict rather than the conviction that in reality occurred, had the case become tainted and a situation where it was impossible to find a jury who were not aware of the case or commentary about it had arisen. There might be valid questions about how much Phillip Schofield knew about his brother’s proclivities but then it’s equally possible that Phillip knew nothing about these until his brother’s arrest.
Phillip Schofield is probably right to say that the relationship with a younger man who became a junior worker on a show featuring Schofield was ‘unwise but not illegal’. He might have first met this young man when the young man was 15 but provided that he didn’t have any sexual activity with Schofield until he had passed the age of 16 then he’s right, there’s no illegality here. The age of consent for both gays and straights has been 16 since 2000.
Where there might be issues of probity and hypocrisy is when the relationship started between Schofield and the younger man. The relationship is said to have started when the younger man was 18 and he is now in his twenties. If that is the case then Schofield has been cheating on his wife with this man or it might be the case, as with a number of other couples both famous and not so famous, that a couple can have a more relaxed version of fidelity than is normally accepted. Either way cheating on ones spouse or being in an open relationship and then working with your lover on the same programme all the time presenting yourself as the perfect husband and father, doesn’t look good. It stinks of hypocrisy.
As regards working with his lover on the same programme this may well contravene rules that ITV might have about junior and senior staff having relationships and working in close proximity when doing so. This is where the allegations of lying come in.
Schofield was asked if he was in a relationship with a younger member of staff on the This Morning programme and he denied it. Maybe if he’d admitted that this was the case the situation might have been resolved by moving the junior grade employee to another programme to avoid any allegations of favouritism or impropriety or gossip about a ‘blow job for a job’. However Schofield’s denial and the later revelation broke the trust between ITV management and Schofield. This in turn caused his agent to drop him and I can understand why. A theatrical agent needs to be absolutely sure that the person that the are representing and investing sometimes vast amounts of money and time into doesn’t have any skeletons in their wardrobe. The agent needs to be on firm ground with their client and not be in a position where they can be caught out by something or become a hostage to fortune. By not being honest with his agent about what was going on with his relationship with this younger man it’s quite understandable that the agent might start to worry about what else might come out about their client? There might not be more, possibly quite icky stuff to come out, but with Schofield’s star on the wane, he might have looked more of a burden than an asset for the agency.
Some reports have said that Schofield has engaged the lawyers Mischon De Reya to act for his former lover. As Mischon De Reya operate in a number of high profile fields, including defamation, it’s leading to a lot of speculation as to whether a high profile civil court case is in the offing although what this will be about I can’t say because I don’t know.
At the heart of this might just be an old fashioned News of the World type ‘kiss and tell’ story only this time with two blokes instead of a tit model and a footballer and maybe that was why Phillip Schofield chose to come out as gay when he did and how he did. Coming out before being outed has long been a way of heading off scandal story surprises as that way the person threatened with being outed at least gets to control some of the story’s narrative.
Whether or not more stuff or more iffy stuff comes out about Phillip Schofield is something only time will tell. But this story is likely to run for a bit longer yet even if bad stuff is not revealed, in fact the story is likely to run a fair bit longer than Schofield’s remaining career. So far he’s been revealed as a bit of a tawdry hypocritical ‘twink‘ chasing older gay man who lied about his sexuality for years both to his family and the public. This goes so much against his public image that I doubt that he will be in demand in the future, maybe not even for panto.
