In a shocking revelation, a BBC anchor has claimed said that she was groped by an interviewee live. At the time, she was pregnant with her first child.


COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

Television presenter Helen Skelton, who's also an actress, is currently the presenter of  BBC's swimming coverage and BBC1’s Countryfile. She's best known for co-presenting BBC children's programme Blue Peter.


Recalling the incident in an explosive interview, Skelton says the grabbed her behind during coverage of a sporting event in 2014.


“Basically, this guy grabbed me on the a--- when I was presenting live telly. I felt really awkward about it. I was pregnant at the time as well. I didn’t really know what to do,” she tells the Telegraph. 


Skelton says she felt “really awkward” about the incident, but was too intimidated to complain.


Skelton's co-presenter Colin Murray reportedly raised the issue immediately and the man was punished.


“He [Colin] kicked off and said that needs dealing with,” she said. “It was handled brilliantly because of that. I’d never thought about complaining. I don’t want it to become my identity. The man in question was punished. There was a line drawn under it, and that was that.”


As the news of  Skelton's on-air harassment broke, footage of Darts player Ross Montgomery patting the anchor's posterior emerged. 


The anchor, however, declined to name the man or the programme she was working on when the incident took place.


Montgomery has denied groping Skelton, claimed that he just gave her a "friendly slap on the bottom."


“She wasn’t groped. It was nothing more than a friendly slap on the bottom,” he told Mail Online.


He added, “I was spoken to at the time. She was apologised to and she didn’t make a big deal of it. But using the word grope, that’s a bit much. My wife was in the crowd and it wasn’t a grope.”