Schofield: I was axed over pervert brother

PHILLIP Schofield was accused of lying last night after claiming ITV forced him out because of his brother's sexual assault conviction.

- Mark Jefferies

In the final episode of his new Channel 5 series, he says: "I was fired for the bad publicity, for someone else's crime." The presenter stepped down from This Morning in May last year - the day after his brother Timothy was jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing a boy.

A week later he quit ITV altogether after admitting lying about an affair with a younger male colleague and was dumped by his agent.

In his Channel 5 show, Schofield says his brother's crimes doomed his four-decade career when "the papers painted me out Paedophile.. to be some sort of Schofield ga complicit agent".