After Sachsgate victim tells Mail On Sunday: ‘I can never forgive Jonathan Ross’… Why is this lewd bully STILL on primetime television?

A fading king of chat shows – once revered for his irreverence – finds himself on a late-night classical music channel.

Although it sounds like a new incarnation for an Alan Partridge parody, the man behind the microphone in Classic FM’s Saturday Night At The Movies is all too real. It’s foul-mouthed host Jonathan Ross.

It’s ironic if nothing else. The 62-year-old Ross, whose sharp TV shows in the 1980s and 1990s had critics hailing the rebirth of British satire, is now progressing his career at a radio station that couldn’t be more establishment.

And yet this is not a fall from grace, far from it. Classic FM is just another remarkable string to his bow.

As unfathomable as it may seem to many, Ross remains ubiquitous on our screens and airwaves.

Who could have tolerated ITV still airing The Jonathan Ross Show, a platform for its mix of filth and creepiness? Or give him a high-profile jury role on one of the biggest family shows, The Masked Singer?

Certainly not after the so-called Sachsgate affair, which haunts him again after fifteen years because of the Russell Brand scandal and has lost none of its revulsion over time.

To recap: Ross and Brand unnecessarily left obscene messages for Andrew Sachs, tormenting the Fawlty Towers star, then 78, over Brand’s brief affair with his granddaughter, Georgina Baillie.

It was Ross, as revealed by The Mail on Sunday at the time, who shouted “he’s fucked your granddaughter” during one of the disgusting calls, broadcast on Brand’s then Radio 2 show.

In the resulting uproar, Brand was sacked and Ross – one of the BBC’s highest-paid broadcasters at the time – was suspended. He eventually snuck over to ITV, where he continues to earn millions.

But the deeply disturbing episode continues to resonate.

Miss Baillie says Ross never said sorry to her personally, although he issued a general apology at the time, saying he was “deeply sorry” for his “juvenile and thoughtless comments” and wrote a letter to her grandfather.

She said: ‘It makes me feel like I don’t matter and that I’m just a throwaway piece of cake.’

IAN GALLAGHER: It was Ross, as revealed at the time by The Mail on Sunday, who shouted “he’s fucked your granddaughter” during one of the disgusting calls, broadcast on Brand’s then Radio 2 show

Seven days ago she said in an interview in The Mail on Sunday: ‘At least Russell Brand said sorry and paid for my rehabilitation. The man I really can’t forgive is Jonathan Ross.’

Despite this ‘regrettable intrusion’ on the Sachs family – as the BBC Trust described it after an investigation – Ross himself is sensitive to privacy.

Two years before he humiliated the Sachses, his lawyers wrote a letter to the editors of Fleet Street expressing his dismay that he had been photographed playing tennis with actor David Baddiel.

This, they said, was a breach of Ross’s ‘right to privacy’ under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights.

One rule for him and another for his targets?

A new generation learning about Sachsgate for the first time has expressed shock on social media. Others have become angry for a second time.

Even before his treatment of Andrew Sachs, there was a question mark over Ross.

However, as the silent partner of a classroom bully, ITV bosses always had his back and are still said to be ‘under his spell’.

IAN GALLAGHER: Mrs Georgina Baillie says Ross never said sorry to her personally, although he made a general apology at the time

IAN GALLAGHER: ITV appears happy to take risks with Ross, even as the broadcaster slavishly follows a woke agenda in other areas

But Ross follows his BBC rival Graham Norton – who consistently has better guests – on the chat shows.

Of course, a lot has changed in the past 15 years. Lewd comments and dirty flirting with female guests have become indispensable in this #MeToo era.

Nevertheless, earlier this year, Ross made unsolicited lewd on-screen banter with comedian Katherine Ryan about her sex life, after joking about it herself.

There was a reaction from shocked viewers. One commented that it was “as funny as cot death” and suggested that “nothing speaks of the demise of television anymore.”

Ross previously asked then-Tory leader David Cameron if he had ever masturbated while thinking about Margaret Thatcher.

And during an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow, Ross told the actress, “I would fuck you,” adding that she was “obviously gagging about it.” He also congratulated Madonna – after she adopted her daughter Mercy – on her ‘lovely little black baby’, and called Heather McCartney – whose leg was amputated after being hit by a police motorbike – a ‘f****** liar’ . jokingly adding, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out she actually has two legs.”

Last year he criticized Radio 2 for becoming “risk-averse” and “boring” after introducing more security measures after the Sachsgate incident.

Meanwhile, ITV appears happy to take risks with Ross, even as the broadcaster slavishly follows a woke agenda in other areas.

How long they will continue to promote him, a man seemingly out of step with the times, remains to be seen. Still, there’s always Classic FM, giving him the chance to let loose and play his favorite – albeit very niche – Japanese animation studio music, like last night.