Caroline Flack’s mother criticises ITV over Phillip Schofield departure

Christine Flack, whose daughter previously hosted ITV’s Love Island, said the broadcaster treated on-screen talent as “commodities” and that Schofield and the young man he had an affair with “should have been looked after”.

The ITV boss, Carolyn McCall, has been called to a parliamentary committee on 14 June to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling after Schofield’s exit.

A coroner ruled she killed herself after learning prosecutors were going to press ahead with an assault charge after an incident involving her boyfriend Lewis Burton.

In an interview Schofield gave to the BBC’s media editor Amol Rajan on Friday, he said he understood how Flack had felt, saying: “If my daughters hadn’t been there, then I wouldn’t be here.”

In Friday’s interview with the BBC, Schofield admitted his career in television was over and spoke about the “relentless” coverage he had faced in the press and with online speculation.

“As a producer and broadcaster, ITV takes its responsibilities around duty of care seriously and has robust and well-established processes in place to support the mental and physical health of employees and all those we work with.”