logo
Fresh Strictly drug allegations as 10-year show veteran claims he was offered cocaine by one of it stars at wild party

Fresh Strictly drug allegations as 10-year show veteran claims he was offered cocaine by one of it stars at wild party

The Sun3 days ago
STRICTLY has been hit by fresh drug allegations from a former veteran worker on the show — including claims he was offered cocaine by one of its stars.
The whistleblower, who worked on the family hit for ten years until 2023, said he saw 'partying' at the Elstree studios after live filming.
3
He alleged stars and crew were 'drinking and taking drugs'.
He claimed on two separate occasions bags of white power, suspected to be cocaine, were found in a smoking area and also in the men's toilets.
And the ex-production crew member alleges one of the Strictly stars offered him cocaine at a Blackpool show after-party.
We have passed on his allegations to the BBC.
It comes after The Sun on Sunday revealed last week The Sun on Sunday revealed last week the BBC had launched an inquiry into allegations of cocaine abuse on Strictly by two stars.
BBC bosses have hired external lawyers Pinsent Masons to speak to former contestants, professional dancers and crew.
We told how one star accused another of being 'off their face' on drugs.
And a celebrity had told how it was 'well known on the show that two stars took cocaine . . . it was talked about widely among the cast'.
Now, in the latest claims, the long-serving former production crew member, told The Sun on Sunday: 'Strictly is full of partying and drug -taking.
BBC launches inquiry into damning allegations of drug consumption on flagship show Strictly Come Dancing
'The main partying is on site at Elstree after filming of the live show has finished. Boozing and drug taking goes on until 3am, sometimes 4am.
'The smoking area outside is a hive of activity. Cocaine gets taken there.
'I remember a bag of cocaine was found in the outside smoking area at Elstree and handed in to a senior producer. That person said, 'Leave it on my desk', no eyebrows were raised.
'On another occasion, a small bag of cocaine was found in the male toilets at Elstree. It was widely discussed by people working on the show.
'But in some ways it was seen as quite normal, to find that sort of thing.
"People think they can get away with it.'
The whistleblower came forward after reading our story last Sunday and learning of the BBC-led inquiry.
He claimed the annual show filmed at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom was 'a particularly big celebration' for the cast and crew.
He said: 'Blackpool was always a big party night. I was offered cocaine by a star at an after-show party. Lots of people would go back to the hotel.
'It was a closed-off party, just for the cast and crew. It went on until 5am, even to 6am, it was insane. People were wired and you could see it in their eyes.
'There was lots of champagne and Prosecco too, loads of bottles of it.'
He added that he thought it was 'well known' on the programme that one of the stars took cocaine, and that he felt they needed help.
He said: 'They had a real problem with cocaine, lots of people spoke about it.'
Referring to these latest allegations, a BBC spokesman said: 'We have clear protocols and policies in place for dealing with any serious complaint raised with us.
'We would always encourage people to speak to us if they have concerns.'
3
Last night, a BBC source said they would look into the ex-worker's ­allegations and asked us to put him in touch with them — after the former worker said he was considering talking to the investigation team.
It came as the BBC is prepared to launch its 23rd series of Strictly next month.
The Corporation is hoping for a scandal-free show after previous ones were hit by numerous controversies.
They included Sherlock actress Amanda Abbington accusing Giovanni Pernice of bullying her and Graziano Di Prima being sacked for kicking his celebrity partner Zara McDermott.
Last weekend, The Sun on Sunday revealed drugs allegations were made in a legal submission to the BBC in March, by law firm Russells, on behalf of celebrity contestant Wynne Evans — who was axed from the Strictly live tour after he was recorded making an inappropriate sexual comment.
It was understood others have also reported to the BBC allegations of drug taking on Strictly.
A source said: 'It's been an extremely difficult time for everyone connected to Strictly but, to be fair, the BBC acted promptly on The Sun's drug allegations and brought in external lawyers to help with their investigation.
'They're clearly determined to clean up the show, which of course is a hugely popular family show, so it's no real surprise they are taking these allegations seriously and holding a proper inquiry.
'With the new Strictly series about to start, and the latest crop of celebrities being unveiled soon, the BBC will want it all to run smoothly.'
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Government expands police use of live facial recognition vans
Government expands police use of live facial recognition vans

BBC News

time3 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Government expands police use of live facial recognition vans

More live facial recognition (LFR) vans will be rolled out across seven police forces in England to locate suspects for crimes including sexual offences, violent assaults and homicides, the Home Office has announced. The forces will get access to 10 new vans equipped with cameras which scan the faces of people walking past and check them against a list of wanted people. The government says the technology has been used in London to make 580 arrests in 12 months, including 52 registered sex offenders who breached their conditions. However, campaign group Big Brother Watch said the "significant expansion of the surveillance state" was "alarming". Live facial recognition was first used in England and Wales in 2017 during the Uefa Champions League final football match in Cardiff. Since then its use has largely been confined to South Wales, London and Essex including at a Beyoncé concert to scan for paedophiles and terrorists. The government is now funding ten vans equipped with LFR to be shared between seven forces, approximately doubling the number of vehicles. The seven forces are Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire. The technology identifies people by taking measurements of facial features including the distance between the eyes and the length of the jawline and then comparing the data to to an existing watchlist. Each van will be staffed with a trained officer who checks the matches identified by the technology. Simultaneously, the government is holding a consultation on what safeguards are needed to "ensure transparency and public confidence", ahead of drawing up a new legal framework. Big Brother Watch is bringing a legal challenge against the Met Police's use of the technology, alongside Shaun Thompson, who was wrongly identified by an LFR camera. Rebecca Vincent, interim director of Big Brother Watch, said: "Police have interpreted the absence of any legislative basis authorising the use of this intrusive technology as carte blanche to continue to roll it out unfettered, despite the fact that a crucial judicial review on the matter is pending."The Home Office must scrap its plans to roll out further live facial recognition capacity until robust legislative safeguards are established."Charlie Whelton, policy and campaigns officer at Liberty, said: "It's welcome news that the government will finally develop a statutory framework on the use of facial recognition, but this should be in place before more facial recognition technology is rolled out."There's no reasonable excuse to be putting even more cameras on our streets before the public have had their say and legislation is brought in to protect all of us."The government says officers using the LFR vans will need to follow the College of Policing's guidance on the technology and the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice. It also says independent testing of the facial recognition algorithm by the National Physical Laboratory found that "the algorithm is accurate and there is no bias for ethnicity, age or gender at the settings used by the police".Chief Superintendent of South Wales Police Tim Morgan said: "We understand the concerns which are raised about the use of live facial recognition technology and we use any new technology ethically and spend time and effort making sure it's deployed in line with all legislation and guidance."The Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents police officers, said: "The government must also invest in comprehensive training programmes for officers to accompany this technology rollout, particularly as police forces face an unprecedented officer retention crisis."Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government would "provide police with the tools they need to do their jobs". "Facial recognition will be used in a targeted way to identify sex offenders or people wanted for the most serious crimes who the police have not been able to find." The Home Office has also announced that it has fulfilled a manifesto pledge to ensure there is a named, contactable officer in every neighbourhood in England and Wales. It said people can search for an officer on the website of local police forces, who have signed up to a commitment to respond to queries within 72 hours. The type of contact method provided will be up to individual forces.

The scoundrel great-grandfather of baby killer Constance Marten: How promiscuous aristocrat left film star lover lamenting his 'flashes of cruelty', writes CHRISTOPHER WILSON
The scoundrel great-grandfather of baby killer Constance Marten: How promiscuous aristocrat left film star lover lamenting his 'flashes of cruelty', writes CHRISTOPHER WILSON

Daily Mail​

time3 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

The scoundrel great-grandfather of baby killer Constance Marten: How promiscuous aristocrat left film star lover lamenting his 'flashes of cruelty', writes CHRISTOPHER WILSON

As she sits in prison awaiting sentencing for her part in the death of her newborn baby daughter, Constance Marten will have plenty of time to dwell on some history. Her grandmother, Mary Marten, was a goddaughter of the Queen Mother, and her father, Napier, was a page to Queen Elizabeth II. But you do not need to go much further back to lurch from royal favour to some truly scandalous behaviour. Marten's great-grandfather, the 3rd Lord Alington, was said to be the most dissolute man ever to enter the House of Lords. Also called Napier, he indulged in wild same-sex orgies while keeping a mistress old enough to be his mother. He spent money like water, encouraged drug taking and illegal behaviour, and was constantly searching out novel ways to slake his prodigious sexual thirst. Napier Senior perhaps found a mentor in the naughty King Edward VII, who came to stay at Crichel with his mistress Alice Keppel. Napier – Naps to his friends - sent his girlfriend, the oversexed (or, as she described herself, 'ambisextrous') actress Tallulah Bankhead, to seduce the boys at his old school, Eton. One was just 14. The Home Secretary, William Joynson-Hicks, ordered MI5 to investigate 'this extremely immoral woman' - but the school refused to co-operate, and the boys in question were expelled for 'motoring offences' (Bankhead had taken them to a hotel in her car). Bankhead, a lively bisexual, introduced herself to Alington with her famous line, 'I'm a lesbian. What do you do?' What didn't he do? Invited to a ball in Paris, he managed to shake that unshockable city with his behaviour. His lover would later say of him: 'I was irked by his nonchalance, his cynicism, his flashes of cruelty. 'He wasn't good looking, he had an almost repulsive mouth, but he lived recklessly. 'He scorned the conventions, loved to gamble and, when it pleased him, had great wit and charm.' In his book The Fatal Englishman, author Sebastian Faulks related one particular story that revealed Naps' character in a flash. 'One of the most remorseless pleasure-seekers in Europe, Naps went dressed as the Sun King, his costume consisting of a number of rays attached to his gilded skin. 'As the evening progressed, he gave away the rays, one by one, until even his Louis XIV mask and his golden stockings were gone. 'When he returned to the Ritz Hotel at dawn the old ladies in the Place Vendome were taking their poodles out for an early morning walk. 'The manager of the hotel rushed out to wrap him in a blanket – but not before Alington, on the steps of the hotel, had removed his golden fig-leaf and presented it to the Ritz as a souvenir of his night out.' That sounded like fun, but there was a much darker side – in part, perhaps, because his anguished elder brother Gerard, who should have inherited the title and lands, committed suicide on Armistice Day in 1918. He had been grotesquely wounded in the first months of the war and paralysed from the waist down. Throughout his tragic last days, his father bullied him unmercifully. 'The whole family is vicious,' wrote the diarist and MP Henry 'Chips' Channon. 'Too aristocratic ever to feel the fetters of position or morals or standards. They love low-life and sexual experiments.' Quite as unruly was Alington's sister Lois - a drug-addled, needy, woman who flaunted her royal connections but was constantly in need of money to feed her habit. She became the mistress of Reggie Pembroke, a crusty old earl and the owner of nearby Wilton House. Although he was old enough to be her father, she sponged off him and encouraged him to be her sugar daddy. She then had a fling with Prince George, Duke of Kent, before becoming engaged to a number of different men. When she finally married, to the exclusively homosexual Viscount Tredegar in a swish ceremony at the Brompton Oratory, it was said there wasn't a single person in the congregation that the couple hadn't slept with. Back to Naps though. Chips Channon confessed he too had slept with him. 'Unbelievably handsome,' he recalled, 'with a smile that nobody has ever resisted. 'He carried the world before him but he was not quite human. 'He was a centaur, a satyr without morals, stability or ambition. He was an enchanting companion but one who sadly squandered his charm, his health, his fortune, and his time. 'He could never rest, drank all night, was surrounded by sycophants, and went to bed with anyone and everyone he met.' Despite his sexual preferences Naps married – not Tallulah Bankhead, though they talked about it – but Lady Mary Ashley-Cooper, daughter of the Earl of Shaftesbury. Their only child, Mary Anna – Constance Marten's grandmother – inherited Crichel, which then passed to her son, the younger Napier. Though outwardly more conventional than his namesake grandfather, it was in 1996 - when Constance was just nine years old - that this Napier had a so-called awakening. A voice in his head told him to quit his Crichel inheritance, shave his head, and fly to Australia. Leaving his small children behind at home, he adopted a life of whale-watching and spiritual discovery. He became a tree-surgeon and later admitted, 'I do recall having a recognition of myself that I was exhibiting some sort of courage, but of course, in many other people's minds I was exhibiting some sort of cowardice.' He recollected an out-of-body experience on a clifftop, and how an encounter with whales made him cry 'almost nonstop' for seven days. 'I found myself looking down at my sleeping body,' he said. 'The next thing I know, I'm flying out into the ocean into the dark waters and swimming with the whales. 'I'm being pulled along by them and there is this conversation going on... it was a complete clearing out, a transmission of energy. 'These days of expansion unfortunately can't be repeated, but when one's in it, it is the most exciting part of your life.' Constance's father claims he does not know how long his exile lasted. He eventually returned to the UK, but not to his old life at Crichel House - he lived in a lorry, worked as a chef, then trained in a form of head massage called craniosacral therapy. He passed his estate on to his eldest son Max, who was studying environmental science and geography at Oxford Brookes University at the time. In 2013, Max sold the house and 400 acres of its land to American hedge fund billionaire Richard Chilton for a reported £34 million. All this high life and big money is very far from a cramped cell in a Surrey women's prison where prisoner A9624X Constance Marten now awaits sentencing on charges of manslaughter by gross negligence, concealing the birth of a child, perverting the course of justice by not reporting her death, and child cruelty.

Trans Met Police volunteer, 27, met with 'rape victim' when she was so young she was 'interested in things like teddies', court hears
Trans Met Police volunteer, 27, met with 'rape victim' when she was so young she was 'interested in things like teddies', court hears

Daily Mail​

time3 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Trans Met Police volunteer, 27, met with 'rape victim' when she was so young she was 'interested in things like teddies', court hears

A transgender volunteer police officer allegedly told his victim he wanted to have sex with her despite her being 'so young' she was still interested in teddy bears, a court heard. James Bubb, who now identifies as a woman named Gwyn Samuels, was violent towards the complainant despite her asking them to be gentle when taking her virginity while in her early teens, Amersham Law Courts heard. In a police interview played to the court on Tuesday, the alleged victim told officers that at the age of 12, she was being 'hidden' when the pair were in public together and that the defendant, who was 21, looked 'paranoid' when with her. The complainant, who met Bubb on video-chat site Omegle in 2018, also spoke of how she was 'frozen' when the now 27-year-old defendant attempted to engage in sexual activity in public shortly before her 13th birthday. She told officers she had said to the defendant that she was five years older than she actually was when they first met - but insisted that a number of incidents when they were together would have meant he knew she was underage. The alleged victim said: 'He knew at the time that I was very much interested in things like teddies.' She told police of their first in-person meeting at a Christian festival where Bubb, who was working as a volunteer steward for Metropolitan Police at the time, made remarks about going into her tent and having sex with her. She spoke of how the pair met up away from other festival-goers and said her colour-coded child wristband was clearly on show. The alleged victim said: 'He was really paranoid, looking around constantly.' She added: 'We were in a relationship in my eyes but I was being hidden whenever we were in public. 'He made remarks in person about when it was dark... about coming into my tent and having sex with me. 'I was actually so young at that point that I had a teddy bear in my tent. He knew at the time that I was very much interested in things like teddies.' Addressing how she felt when the defendant spoke of going into her tent, she added: 'I said I wasn't comfortable with that... and I believe he sent me a text on Snapchat at that point and he said he was probably going to come into my tent either way - maybe while I was sleeping. 'I remember being scared that night.' The complainant went on to speak about how, when the pair started having sex, Bubb was violent. Telling officers about when the defendant took her virginity, she said: 'He had his hands around my throat. I tried to get words out but they weren't coming out as easily.' She told the officer that sometimes the defendant was 'hitting me during sex... sometimes he would punch me'. The alleged victim added: 'He would also make remarks about raping me. 'He told me I enjoyed being raped and when I said no, he didn't stop and that's when he made these specific remarks.' The defendant has denied one count of rape in relation to one complainant, and two counts of rape, two counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of assault of a child under 13 by penetration, one count of rape of a child under 13 and one count of assault by penetration in relation to the other complainant. All charges are alleged to have taken place between January 1, 2018 to April 2, 2024. The defendant, of High Street, Chesham, Buckinghamshire, denies all charges. The trial continues.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store