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Jeremy Vine has said he is “worried about the state of mind” of the presenter at the centre of the BBC scandal.
Speaking on his Channel 5 show, Vine – who also hosts an afternoon show on BBC Radio 2 – said: “It’s his decision but he needs to come forward now, I think.
BBC presenter scandal – latest updates
“I know his survival instinct has kicked in and I know he saw what happened to Phillip Schofield, but my God look at the damage to the BBC, look at the damage to his friends, to those falsely accused – and the longer he leaves it the worse it will be for him.”
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Sky News speaks to BBC Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine.
Vine said he thought “very carefully” before posting a tweet on Tuesday night urging the unnamed presenter to reveal himself, adding: “I know the individual concerned. I am very worried about his state of mind and what this is doing to him.
“I haven’t spoken to him but I gather from somebody who has that he is described as angry and keen to play it long.
“Now to me that means that he wants to be anonymous for as long as possible hoping that he can one day walk back into the building.”
But Vine said the presenter will not be able to “remain anonymous forever” while continuing to work for the broadcaster and suggested he “will have to answer” the allegations against him.
“Now, he must have a defence, he must have one. Maybe he’s going to say it’s all a misunderstanding? Well, I assume it,” Vine said.
Vine also said his wife worried for his safety when going to a Bruce Springsteen concert at the weekend after a frenzy of false accusations against several BBC presenters on social media.
“I had a situation: I was going to see Bruce Springsteen at the weekend and my wife said, ‘are you going to be safe there?’
BBC presenter Jeremy Vine has said he his worried about the unnamed presenter’s ‘state of mind’
“That’s how serious this thing is, and she gave me a baseball cap and said ‘you better wear this’,” he said.
The unnamed presenter was suspended over the weekend after The Sun claimed he had paid tens of thousands of pounds to a young person in exchange for sexually explicit photographs.
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On Tuesday further allegations emerged involving the presenter, who allegedly sent threatening messages to another young person in their early 20s, who has no connection to The Sun’s accuser, the BBC reported.
A third person, aged 23, then alleged the presenter defied COVID rules to meet them during a national lockdown in February 2021, The Sun claimed.
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Separately, The Sun has also published messages that were allegedly sent to a 17-year-old after a conversation was initiated on Instagram in October 2018.
The paper said the messages contained love heart emojis and kisses.
The person, now 22, was quoted as saying: “Looking back now it does seem creepy because he was messaging me when I was still at school.”
