Britain’s Got Talent bosses looked into s3xu@l abuse allegation against judge David Walliams claims 6 years ago

Britain’s Got Talent producers reportedly looked into allegations about David Walliams’s conduct in 2020 but found no evidence at the time that would justify removing him from the show.

The Daily Mail reported that the informal review followed claims from journalists and social media users that Walliams, then a judge on the ITV programme, had behaved inappropriately at Fountain Studios in Wembley. Sources told the newspaper that producers could not establish whether guests who visited his dressing room had first met him through social media.

Abby Tomlinson, a fan of the show, alleged that she and a 13-year-old girl were left alone with Walliams in his dressing room with the door closed. His lawyers denied the claim, saying the door was always left open and that his personal assistant put young women on the guest list.

No formal complaints about Walliams were reportedly submitted to Fremantle, the company that produces the show. A source told the Mail that the review was conducted “on a more informal basis with no external company brought in to look at it”.

Walliams, 55, served as a judge from 2012 to 2022. He left after it emerged that he had made explicit and derogatory remarks about some contestants.

The account of the 2020 review follows an investigation by The Guardian and ITV News in which Walliams was accused of grooming girls as young as 15 and using his position to pursue women. He denies the allegations and unsuccessfully sought a court injunction to block publication. In a letter to the journalists, Walliams rejected accusations of predatory behaviour, saying he had “behaved thoughtlessly” but had not broken the law.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed it had contacted both outlets to make sure anyone who may have been affected knew how to report allegations to police.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she would meet senior figures from the media and entertainment industries to “draw a line in the sand”. Her comments followed calls for clearer ways to report concerns about powerful figures in the industry and came in the wake of Russell Brand’s conviction in a separate case involving defilement.

After the allegations were published on Tuesday, Independent Talent Group dropped Walliams, and the BBC began removing programmes featuring him, including Little Britain, from iPlayer.