Scott Mills scandal: BBC warned a year ago and did nothing
The Daily T
The Telegraph
4.1 • 702 Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
The BBC has admitted to the Telegraph that it knew of allegations against Scott Mills almost a year ago but failed to investigate.
The corporation had claimed it terminated the Radio 2 presenter's contract as soon as it learned of the allegations of serious sexual offences against a teenage boy between 1997 and 2000.
But as The Telegraph's associate editor Gordon Rayner tells The Daily T, a former BBC presenter contacted the corporation in May 2025 to say she had received information about alleged “inappropriate communications” involving Mills.
She did not receive a response, and today the BBC admitted her information “should have been followed up and we should have asked further questions”. We explore what this latest scandal means for the beleaguered broadcaster.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:09.7 | The DJ Scott Mills has been sacked from Radio 2's breakfast show after historic allegations of sexual offences with an underage teenage boy. |
| 0:19.0 | But a new exclusive telegraph investigation reveals that the BBC was warned about Mills's |
| 0:24.9 | behaviour almost a year ago and did not take action. |
| 0:29.6 | Our associate editor, Gordon Rainer, joins us. |
| 0:32.0 | And with the new drama about Hugh Edwards finally released last week, we speak to his |
| 0:37.2 | self-appointed publicist to ask |
| 0:39.5 | what Hugh Edwards made of it all. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me Tim Stanley and me, Rachel |
| 0:45.0 | Johnson. Another humiliating scandal for the BBC. |
| 0:58.7 | Last Tuesday, people tuning in to listen to BBC Radio 2's breakfast show |
| 1:04.0 | will have heard Scott Mills sign off in the same way he always does like this. |
| 1:09.5 | Oh yeah, we need to finish with the loaf and share. |
| 1:14.1 | Back tomorrow morning when you wake up from 6 Thursday with Niall Horan and Jason Manford. |
| 1:20.1 | The next day, Scott was gone. |
| 1:22.7 | 53-year-old Mills, it was announced over the weekend, had been sacked from his |
| 1:26.7 | 355,000 pound a year |
| 1:29.6 | job hosting Radio 2 Breakfast and Eurovision after allegations emerged of serious sexual offences |
| 1:36.1 | committed against a teenage boy between 1997 and 2000. |
| 1:41.3 | Now the police did not become involved in this story until the late 2010s, and the CPS did not charge Scott Mills when it investigated him between 2016 and 2019. |
| 1:53.0 | So, if you think about the timeline, 1997 to 2000 is the relationship, 16 years later, you get the beginning of a police investigation, |
| 2:02.6 | and then another 10 years after that, the BBC finally lets him go. |
| 2:07.6 | He may, of course, be completely innocent. |
... |
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