Stephen Dymond (pictured) died in a suspected suicide a week after taping ITV's Jeremy Kyle Show
The father found dead days after appearing on The Jeremy Kyle Show told relatives the presenter had ‘really laid into’ him.
In an emotional phone call following filming, Stephen Dymond said Mr Kyle had ‘ripped into him’ on stage, according to his son Carl.
The 62-year-old was left distraught after failing a lie detector test over claims he had cheated on his fiancée.
A week later he died in a suspected suicide. Mr Dymond’s landlady told the Mail he was deeply upset after appearing on the programme and also claimed Mr Kyle ripped into him on set.
A furious row erupted over the ITV show yesterday, with MPs, psychiatrists and experts urging the broadcaster to scrap its ‘theatre of cruelty’ permanently.
Downing Street intervened to say Mr Dymond’s case was ‘deeply disturbing’ and to demand that TV firms support their guests.
Producers at ITV now face urgent questions about why they allowed a father, who was suffering from depression and faced a warrant for his arrest, to appear on the programme.
Health and Safety adviser Carl Woolley,39, son of Stephen Dymond who was found dead after an appearance on the Jeremy Kyle Show
As the future of The Jeremy Kyle Show, which has been on air since 2005 and is thought to bring in considerable advertising revenue, was thrown into doubt:
A string of participants came forward to tell of their treatment on the show;Two others said they had been left suicidal after appearing on the programme, with one saying he had his character assassinated;A former runner on the show has alleged that there was violence backstage, and producers aimed to create confrontation for the audience;It was claimed that producers targeted people on social media with offers of free DNA tests and lie detectors;Mr Dymond’s landlady said she had been told by a producer that he may have been unable to access support in the hours before his death as it was a bank holiday;ITV’s chief executive sent staff an email claiming they pulled the plug on the show only to ‘protect it’ from public outcry;Mr Kyle refused to answer questions as he left the home of his fiancée’s parents.
Stephen Dymond (pictured aged 21 in 1980 with his newborn son Carl Woolley at his home in Roden,Shropshire
In an interview with the Mail last night, Mr Dymond’s son Carl Woolley, 39, said his father had been left distraught after failing a lie detector test during a recording of the hit ITV daytime show earlier this month.
That evening the pair, who had not spoken for seven years, reconnected via telephone after a relative – alarmed at Mr Dymond’s highly emotional state – contacted Mr Woolley and passed on his phone number.
But before the pair could meet for the first time in 36 years, Mr Dymond was discovered dead in the room he had been renting since separating from Jane Callaghan, who appeared on the television show beside him.
Mr Woolley, a health and safety adviser, said: ‘I called after he got home from filming the episode. He was distraught over the break-up of the relationship.
Carl Woolley, 39, said his father had been left devastated after the show destroyed his relationship. Mr Woolley had recently seen his father for the first time in 36 years
‘He had gone on the show solely to clear his name (about allegedly cheating on Miss Callaghan) but he said it had gone wrong because of the lie detector test.
‘He was adamant that he did not lie. He was so upset that he wasn’t making much sense, but he just kept repeating: “I haven’t cheated, Carl, I swear I haven’t cheated”.’
Mr Woolley, a father of three from Telford in Shropshire, said his father had disclosed that Jeremy Kyle himself had ‘really ripped in to him’.
Referring to his father by his first name, Mr Woolley added: ‘Steve told me “Kyle really laid into me”. Presumably that was at the point when they announced the lie detector result.’
Mr Woolley said a note addressed to him was found alongside Mr Dymond’s body in the Portsmouth flat where the building machinery operator had been lodging. He is believed to have taken an overdose.
He added: ‘I’m satisfied Steve intended to kill himself. In the note, he apologised and asked me not to hate him for what he has done.’
ITV has suspended filming of the Kyle show and removed all past episodes from its catch-up website. But last night world-renowned psychiatrist, Professor Sir Simon Wessely, led calls for the programme to be cancelled immediately.
The president of the Royal Society of Medicine said: ‘It should be dropped. It’s the theatre of cruelty. And yes, it might entertain a million people a day, but then again, so did Christians versus Lions.
Plus, the idea that as the programme website says “Jeremy is here to help” is stretching the verb “to help” beyond any normal meaning of help, it’s almost an offence under the trades description act.’
Last night ITV said it had no further comment to make.
The Jeremy Kyle Show is one of the channel’s most lucrative programmes with viewing figures of almost one million per episode.
A catastrophic moment of fate... then suicide victim threw himself into the bear pit of daytime TV's most cynical circus master: GUY ADAMS investigates the events that led to a tragic death and chaos at ITV
Jeremy Kyle, pictured yesterday evening arriving at his luxury home in Windsor, Berkshire as his show faces an uncertain future following the suicide of one of his guests
Life never ran particularly smoothly for Steven Dymond, but prior to the morning of Thursday May 2, the 62-year-old construction worker was entitled to feel cautiously optimistic about his future.
A troubled soul, who was born and raised in Devon, ‘Steve’ had for most of his adult life dabbled in soft drugs and struggled to maintain relationships.
He’d clocked up a failed marriage in his early 20s, becoming estranged from both his ex-wife Jane and their adult son, Carl. He married again, only for his second marriage to fail. And he managed to fall out with most members of his immediate family, including his mother Rosalind.
After moving to first Shropshire and then Hampshire, in the late 1990s, he’d also fallen into petty crime, clocking up minor convictions related to vehicle theft.
Ever since, he’d been based in the seaside town of Gosport, where he earned a shilling operating diggers on local building sites. And it was here, in the autumn of 2017, that things finally took a turn for the better, when he fell head over heels for Jane Callaghan, a 48-year-old divorcee who quickly became the love of his life.
Within weeks, the previously-lonely Dymond had moved into a terraced Barratt Home in the working class neighbourhood of Rowner that Miss Callaghan shared with her teenage daughter. That Christmas Day, he got down on one knee and proposed. Miss Callaghan immediately said yes. ‘I was crying, the love was real. He was the most generous and loving person,’ she recalled this week.
To mark the occasion, she posted a picture of Dymond on Facebook. ‘I’m very lucky to have found a man like you. We will grow old together,’ read her caption. ‘I love you so much,’ he replied.
Mr Dymond was discovered dead in the room he had been renting since separating from Jane Callaghan, who appeared on the television show beside him (pictured together)
At weekends, Steve could be found in overalls on the couple’s front drive, tinkering with second-hand cars. His fiancee would watch affectionately from the kitchen. Though few relationships are perfect, they struck neighbours as every inch the happy couple. Sadly, the heady domestic bliss did not last forever.
For in February this year, Jane came across a photograph, seemingly on her betrothed’s mobile telephone, which showed him in an intimate pose with an ex-girlfriend. She also discovered that several Viagra tablets were missing from a supply the couple used.
An angry row ensued, in which Dymond insisted that the image had been taken several years earlier, before they were an item, but Callaghan refused to believe him.It ended with her instructing him to leave the house. He moved into the spare room of a council flat near Portsmouth harbour, a short drive away, which had been advertised for rent on the website Gumtree.
The sudden upheaval left Steve, who had suffered mental health problems in the past, suffering a bout of depression. But he continued to maintain his innocence and, over time, his relationship with Jane thawed.
Mr Dymond's episode was filmed on May 2. He failed the polygraph test and was condemned by Jeremy Kyle and the audience
Over the Easter weekend, the couple travelled to Surrey’s Thorpe Park, where they enjoyed, according to a Facebook post, a ‘day to remember’. Shortly afterwards, he moved back into her home.
It was at this point that Dymond took the fateful decision that would lead to his untimely death.
Like many hundreds of mostly working class Britons before him, he decided that the best possible forum in which to finally clear the air with his betrothed (who remained somewhat suspicious about his incriminating photo) would be the Jeremy Kyle Show.
He duly arranged to travel to the Salford studios where the show, dubbed ‘poverty porn’ by critics and once likened by a judge to ‘a human form of bear-baiting which goes under the guise of entertainment,’ is filmed.
Mr Kyle, pictured, has been criticised in court by a judge who described his show as 'human bear baiting'. However, approximately 1.5 million people a day tune in for a dose of poverty porn
It was agreed that the couple would have a full and frank discussion about their recent troubles, mediated by Kyle and watched by a studio audience.
The culmination of the programme would involve him taking a free lie detector test (usual cost £400) to establish whether, in the opinion of experts, he was telling the truth. Dymond and Miss Callaghan’s episode was filmed on Thursday, May 2.
As we now know, it didn’t end well: he not only failed the polygraph test, but appears to have then been roundly criticised by both Kyle and his baying audience. ‘He was distraught and devastated,’ recalled Steven’s landlady, Shelley,
