The inquest into the death of Jeremy Kyle Show guest Steve Dymond is finally underway, and involved unaired footage of the show being played in court of the moment the tragic guest was given his lie detector results.
The episode this footage was intended for was never broadcast, and the show was cancelled entirely after 63-year-old Dymond took his own life 7 days after filming the show in May 2019:
A staggeringly dark moment in British TV history. Watch this unseen footage and remember: as Jeremy Kyle is barracking the late Steve Dymond and telling him, “we stand 100% by that [lie detector test],” ITV later admitted that the tests were unreliable. pic.twitter.com/048yikektW
— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) September 5, 2024
Awful stuff. The inquest aims to determine what responsibility Jeremy Kyle and the show should bear for Dymond’s death, with Kyle was being his usual c*nty self but maybe turning up the heat even more in Dymond’s case.
Another video played in court shows Dymond taking the lie detector test, which was never intended to be aired:
In court this week, Kyle, 59, defended how he presented his show, explaining it was ‘direct, empathetic and honest’, and believed it was structured with ‘the right approach.’
Maya Sikand KC, representing Dymond’s family, asked Kyle if he had been ‘belittling’ over his handling of Dymond during the recording.
She quoted Kyle asking Dymond: ‘Did it bother you that she didn’t have an orgasm or are you a typical male and do not give a toss.’
She said Dymond responds: ‘I can’t remember when’ with Kyle continuing: “You are lying again aren’t you? You can’t remember when she did.”
She said Dymond then says: ‘I cross my heart.’
Sikand asked Kyle: ‘This is pretty belittling isn’t it?’
Kyle replied: ‘I wouldn’t agree with you, I would say it’s the part, from the beginning I had a joke with him, he did get upset but he wasn’t upset from the beginning, that’s the journey and that’s the way the Jeremy Kyle show was.’
During the hearing, Kyle said he had created a persona for the show but had not been trained in handling emotional guests.
He said: ‘The show developed, it was a character, a part, by understanding that from day one as I keep saying, it’s conflict resolution so it involved many aspects of many stories and many different approaches.’
The court also heard Steve Dymond told his son, Carl Woolley, that Kyle had ‘egged on’ the audience to ‘boo him.’
During the inquest, the court was read Dymond’s final text message to Callaghan in which he said the Jeremy Kyle show was ‘responsible’ for his death.
On May 6 2019, Dymond sent a WhatsApp to Callaghan saying: ‘This will be the last time I say it, I was never, never ever unfaithful to you, in all the time we were together.
‘I hope The Jeremy Kyle Show is so happy now, as to what they have done to me.
‘I did lie about my past, but not about me being a cheat, I never ever did cheat on you.
‘They are responsible for what happens now, I hope this makes good ratings for them, I bet they keep this quiet.
‘Never did I cheat on you, never, never. My final words. I did try to explain to you, but you would not listen.’
Asked what his response was to Dymond’s assertion that the Jeremy Kyle Show was ‘responsible’ for his death, Kyle said: ‘I say that I know there was an oil tanker of text messages and WhatsApps… there’s not one that complains about my behaviour.
‘I did not create the show, I was the presenter.’
Whatever happens with this case, I suppose we can all be grateful that the saga has resulted in the Jeremy Kyle Show being taken off TV. In context, the video above is a truly distressing piece of footage, but it’s hard to say whether it’s really any different from how the Jeremy Kyle Show was every show. Duty of care standards in TV have increased massively since this incident, it’s just a shame that Steve Dymond was failed by them. RIP big man.
For the legendary Jeremy Kyle guest now suggesting that Jeremy should go work in a supermarket, click HERE. Not bad advice.
