DAN WOOTTON: The whistle-blower who warned ITV about Phillip Schofield

Last night Eamonn Holmes told me that taxis ‘paid for by ITV’ would transport Phillip Schofield’s much younger male colleague and secret lover from his London apartment to the This Morning studios after their Thursday night ‘playtime’ together.

What was a truly breathtaking revelation from the legendary presenter to the public came as no surprise to those who work at ITV Daytime, as they have known for many years the sordid details of the affair with the teenager 30 years Schofe’s junior, who he first met when he was 15 and helped secure a job on the legendary show.

When their relationship ended, he was moved from This Morning to Loose Women in an unprecedented move that ITV tried to explain away as a ‘promotion’.

In my shocking interview, Eamonn also accused ITV of being responsible for a ‘total cover-up’ of the scandal that now threatens to engulf the country’s largest commercial broadcaster.

But as senior executives at ITV hold on to their jobs, there is growing pressure on them to reveal exactly who knew what and when, and why the investigation they claim to have launched in early 2020 has failed to uncover the truth .

DAN WOOTTON: In my shocking interview, Eamonn also accused ITV of being responsible for a “total cover-up” of the scandal that now threatens to engulf the country’s largest commercial broadcaster.

Carolyn McCall, ITV’s very awakened CEO, has declined to comment publicly, instead hiding behind corporate statements suggesting she swallowed the obvious lies Schofield now admits to telling his bosses.

But I have received a potentially important email sent to McCall and Julian Bellamy, the managing director of ITV Studios, who make This Morning, on 10 February 2020.

Written by a former This Morning staff member who had since left the show, it demanded an investigation into what they feared was abuse of power by Schofield, suggesting at the very least that he should be suspended from the program while the widespread allegations were investigated.

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I have agreed not to name the member of staff, but can reveal that they harbored no personal animosity towards Phillip, who was not involved in their decision to leave.

The email to McCall and Bellamy read in part, “With the current rumors and allegations circulating about Phillip Schofield…why is he still on our screens?” Why hasn’t ITV suspended him pending an internal investigation?

DAN WOOTTON: I received a potentially important email sent to McCall and Julian Bellamy, the managing director of ITV Studios, who make This Morning, on February 10, 2020

“I would have thought in this day and age that a mainstream broadcaster like ITV should do everything it can to address these sorts of issues, find out where the truth lies and, in the meantime, suspend those spreading the rumours?”

In addition, the former This Morning staff member provided McCall and Bellamy with a link to a YouTube video, now nearly two million views, detailing the history of the relationship between Schofield and his young colleague, including alleged contact on social media between the pair and a number of photos of them together socially and at work at ITV.

The former staff member concluded the email: ‘Come on ITV – it’s time to take action and do the responsible thing.’

Neither McCall nor Bellamy were polite to respond to the email, prompting the ex-employee to send multiple messages, which were also ignored.

One read, “I find all of this utterly disgusting.”

Over the weekend, ITV claimed it had launched an investigation into the inappropriate relationship between Schofield and the young producer in early 2020, even though I had first gone to the company in November 2019 with details of the story, which they dismissed as ” malicious gossip’. ‘.

However, in a problematic twist for ITV, Schofield’s former lover is believed to have denied ever being questioned as part of the so-called internal investigation.

Today I asked ITV’s press service – which Holmes called the ‘ministry of lies’ in my GB News interview last night – about the emails sent to McCall and Bellamy and whether they were the trigger for the botched investigation.

They declined to comment and instead referred me to an earlier statement which read: ‘ITV can confirm that when rumors of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an ITV employee first started circulating in early 2020, ITV was investigating.’

But this new email makes it increasingly difficult for McCall to distance himself from the scandal.

She could, of course, claim she hadn’t read the email or chose to ignore its contents as the sender was no longer an ITV employee.

But for an executive who previously prided herself on being on the factory floor with her co-workers getting her hands dirty, it’s getting harder and harder to believe she wasn’t aware of the allegations against Schofield.

DAN WOOTTON: Carolyn McCall, the very awakened CEO of ITV, has declined to comment publicly, instead hiding behind company statements suggesting she had swallowed the obvious lies that Schofield now admits to his bosses has told

Remember, eight well-known ITV names complained to me about what was going on in 2019.

A furious Loose Women star told me, “We shouldn’t be dealing with Phillip’s screwed up situation. We love (the young worker) but he is in a lot of trouble right now. What if he can’t handle it?’

Or how about the National Television Awards in January 2020, where MailOnline today revealed photos of the young lover alongside Holly Willoughby, even though Phillip’s wife was present at the event.

What happened that night was ITV’s talk and within days Phillip would tearfully come out as gay to Holly on the couch.

Of course, McCall’s silence on this growing scandal under her tutelage is particularly hurtful, given the brutality she’s shown when it comes to forgoing high-profile talent breaking away from her awakened worldview.

Piers Morgan, Jeremy Kyle, Carol McGiffin, Jeremy Clarkson and, of course, Eamonn have all gone superfluous to question the narrative surrounding her boyfriend Meghan Markle or the Covid pandemic.

Yet her company seemed to act willfully blindly when it came to the toxic environment at her golden goose This Morning.

But as Eamonn tells me in the second part of my interview airing tonight on GB News, ‘We’re at a stage where ITV and their share price would have fallen and money is talking. You have to watch how she runs the station; what she makes happen.

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As a public company, McCall owes ITV shareholders an explanation of what really happened.

The truth, this time; not the sugar-sweet fairy tale Schofield offered to an unsuspecting British public on the sofa.