Kate Garraway asks ex-BBC radio DJ ‘did you hear rumours about Scott Mills’

Good Morning Britain co-host Kate Garraway has asked a former BBC radio DJ whether ‘there were ever any rumours swirling’ about Scott Mills prior to his sacking.

The 58-year-old ITV presenter was joined by Nihal Arthanayake, who left the BBC last year after beginning his career there in 2001, to discuss how Mills had been fired over his ‘personal conduct’ on Monday.

Mills, who became a host of Radio 1’s early breakfast show in 1998, was sacked by the BBC after reports emerged that he had been questioned over serious sex offences against a teenage boy by police in 2016, according to The Mirror.

Discussing the news, Arthanayake said it seemed like ‘one crisis after another’ for the BBC.

‘My first thoughts are obviously with the alleged victim here, without question, but also Scott Mills is a human,’ he said.

‘He’s a person who got his dream job that has now been taken away from him, and his validation largely in life was probably defined by that job, therefore we have to be very careful.

‘There’s a current feeding frenzy going on, a lot of that is driven by people who just hate the BBC, so they’ll use that to stick the BBC with.

‘But there’s two human beings at the centre of this. And we all know what happened to Caroline Flack, and how the public rounded, and the press rounded on her.

‘We have to be very careful about this, not just for the victim but for Scott as well.’

Asked by Garraway whether he had heard any ‘rumours’ about Mills, Arthanayake went on to say: ‘In all of my 12 years at Radio 1, I didn’t ever hear a bad word said about Scott Mills. I have to just say that. That was the reality, that was my experience and others’ experience.’

Arthanayake also explained how Mills worked his way up to getting his ‘dream job’ for the BBC.

‘Lots of people like me who have worked with Scott for a number of years, this was always his dream,’ he continued.

‘Of all the Radio 1 presenters of my generation, the Fern Cottons and Reggies and Vernons, the one person we knew would end up eventually on Radio 2 was Scott Mills. Everybody knew it and spoke about it – he got his dream job.’

Beginning his career on Radio 1 in the late 1990s as the early breakfast host, Mills then began to present weekend slots and an early evening show.

After taking over from Sara Cox, he then joined Radio 2 in 2022 where he replaced Steve Wright in his weekday afternoon slot.

This came before he eventually took the Breakfast Show after Zoe Ball’s departure.

Good Morning Britain is available to watch on ITV1.

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