Jeremy Vine called the sacking of his BBC Radio 2 colleague Scott Mills ‘unfair’ as he insisted ‘there’s been no crime’ on his Tuesday show.
Mills was sacked six days after being hauled off air following his final Radio 2 breakfast show last Tuesday.
Last night, the Daily Mirror linked the decision to fire Mills to a 2016 police investigation into ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy between 1997 and 2000. The case was dropped around seven years ago due to a lack of evidence.
Vine, who hosts a daily Radio 2 show dissecting the days headlines, shared his upset over Mills’ departure, adding that he felt bosses had sacked him due to regrets over failing to handle the behaviour of Huw Edwards.
Vine then questioned why ‘Huw Edwards couldn’t be sacked because he was in a fragile mental state, and everything I have read about Scott’s history today goes back to his own anxiety and depression but there doesn’t seem to be the same break cut for him.’
The disgraced BBC News presenter Edwards was handed a six-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to three charges of making incident images of children.
‘Scott Mills’ sacking has left a lot of people very confused. What do you make of it? I’d love to know?’ Vine, who has worked alongside Mills at Radio 2 for four years, said at the top of the show.
‘We heard the news just before 12 yesterday here at Radio 2, it came as a complete shock to those of us who work at the station, the presenter of our Breakfast Show, Scott Mills, had been sacked over allegations, we’re told, related to his personal conduct.’
Later in the show, Jeremy noted: ‘It’s a very painful episode for anyone who knows Scott, he’s a very popular guy in the building.’
Jeremy Vine called Radio 2 colleague Scott Mills’ sacking ‘unfair’ on Tuesday because ‘there’s been no crime’ after police probe was dropped – as he questioned why DJ didn’t get same mental health considerations as Huw Edwards
During the show, Vine also spoke to BBC’s Media and Culture Editor Katie Razzell, who said she’d put ‘a series of questions’ to bosses about Mills’ sacking, in particular whether they were aware he had been allegedly investigated by police.
She then shared that the period for which the probe was launched began in 1997, when Mills was still working at Heart FM. He joined Radio 1 the following year.
Oasis Charitable Trust founder and baptist minister Steve Chalke who is friends with Mills and has worked with him on the Pause For Thoughts segment of the Breakfast Show noted there was ‘a sense of grief, of loss, of sadness and shock.’
‘My thoughts, my heart, my pain, is for him and also of any victim of any crime and their family of everybody involved in this,’ he added.
Vine then stated that ‘there hadn’t been a crime’ as Mills was never charged with any offence.
He said: ‘The whole point is there wasn’t a crime, and that’s where this gets difficult, the met have been over it and there is no crime. We are dealing with something we are calling misbehaviour.
‘There is a thought here that what the BBC has done has sacked Huw Edwards, they wish they got in earlier with Huw and they decided to treat Scott how they wish they’d treated Huw. Which would be a bit unfair would it not?’
‘Regarding the inconsistency here, we were told Huw Edwards couldn’t be sacked because he was in a fragile mental state, everything I have read about Scott’s history today goes back to his own anxiety and depression and everything else but there doesn’t seem to be the same break cut for him.’
Mills’ friend Steve Chalke ended the segment by stating: ‘I have had other friends who have faced very serious allegations and have lost their place in the institutions they served only for those allegations in the end to be unfounded. We just don’t know.’
‘But we must be concerned for the mental health of any victim, for Scott, for his family, for his partner Sam. This is a tragic occurrence.’
Another senior broadcaster at the BBC has said there is ‘total shock’ at the corporation after Mills’s sacking.
There were apparently ‘audible gasps’ from staff as they were told on Monday morning in an email from BBC director of music Lorna Clarke.
Mills was sacked six days after being hauled off air following his final Radio 2 breakfast show last Tuesday leaving his friends and colleagues at the BBC shocked; pictured: Scott Mills, Emma B, Jeremy Vine, Dermot O’Leary, Alan Carr, and Sara Cox
Several stars who have spent time with him described him as ‘kind and generous’ and that friends are ‘devastated’ for him.
He was also described by a radio colleague as ‘hugely popular’ internally.
‘It is not like the BBC to act so fast’, a household name broadcaster told the Daily Mail.
Another source claimed that wild rumours are flying around Broadcasting House about the reason for his sacking.
‘No suspension period or prolonged investigation does not bode well’, another insider said.
The teenage boy who accused Mills of serious sexual offences in the 1990s was under 16 at the time, it was revealed today.
Scotland Yard has also confirmed the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the case due to a lack of evidence and their investigation into the broadcaster was closed in 2019.
The Daily Mail can also reveal that the complainant may have been inspired to speak out again this year due to the new Huw Edwards docu-drama.
Two sources have said that within the BBC it is being claimed that the unnamed man may have gone to the corporation due to the huge publicity surrounding Martin Clunes starring as Huw Edwards in Power: The Downfall Of Huw Edwards.
Former police officer and now investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas said police contacts confirmed to him that Mills was interviewed by the Met in 2018 – in a spin-off investigation from Operation Yewtree.
It was confirmed on Monday that the Radio 2 star has been sacked by the BBC, apparently over a ‘historic male relationship from more than ten years ago’ (Pictured: Mills with his husband Sam Vaughan on Celebrity Race Across The World in 2024, which they won)
Mr Williams-Thomas helped expose Jimmy Savile and his work led to the police investigation against Savile and others including Rolf Harris.
He told the Mail today: ‘The police were swamped with allegations post-Savile and as a result it led to high profile stars being named [by complainants], one of these was Scott Mills. He wasn’t charged – but was allowed to continue working’.
The BBC is refusing to say why he was sacked other than that it was related to his ‘personal conduct’. The corporation is now under pressure to explain what they knew about Mills’ brush with police and when.
Mills joined BBC Radio 1 in 1998 from Heart 106.2, where he started in 1995 after working in local radio in Hampshire, Bristol and Manchester. He left the BBC after 28 years yesterday.
A source has claimed that the director general at the time of the police probe, Tony Hall, did not know about the allegations.
It has been revealed that the period for which the pplice probe was launched began in 1997, when Mills was still working at Heart FM. He joined Radio 1 the following year; Pictured in 2009
One BBC executive in London told the Daily Mail today that there’s a real belief amongst bosses at the corporation that the timing of Mills’ sacking and the release of the Edwards drama was ‘not a coincidence’.
‘The Huw Edwards drama showed that there could be a reckoning’, they said.
Another senior broadcaster at the BBC added that this claim that the Edwards drama was the ‘spark’ is swirling around Broadcasting House.
The BBC declined to comment on the claims.
Last night the Daily Mirror reported the decision to fire Mills came after a 2016 police investigation into ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy.
The BBC declined to comment on why he was not suspended or sacked at the time and why they have fired him almost a decade later.
