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Susanna Reid has branded Jeremy Vine’s ‘move’ to put pressure on the unnamed BBC presenter at the centre of a scandal as ‘strange’.
The Channel 5 host, who has categorically denied being the anonymous male presenter, has issued a call for them to ‘come forward publicly’.
He stressed that it is ‘his decision and his alone’ but added that the new allegations that have come to light will result in further attention on ‘innocent’ colleagues of his, while the BBC is ‘on its knees’.
While discussing the situation on Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain, Susanna appeared to hint she doesn’t quite agree.
Presenting alongside Ed Balls, she explained: ‘Other names of course have been put around on social media, there’s threats of legal action.
‘And now we have a very high-profile presenter, Jeremy Vine, putting pressure on the unnamed presenter to come forward, which I think is a strange move for another presenter.’
Susanna continued: ‘But it reflects the fact that there are other people who feel they are unwittingly caught up in this.’
Susanna Reid discussed the ongoing BBC scandal (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)
GMB guest and journalist Andrew Pierce replied: ‘People who are presenters at the BBC are saying, “We’re being named, they’re looking at us.”
‘Their social media feeds are filled with hatred, and people are saying, “We know it’s you.”
‘And they’re fed up with it. It’s defamatory what’s being said about them.
‘And Jeremy Vine is a good man and just wants it to stop, and this person to come forward and take the pressure off.’
Writing on Twitter on Tuesday, Vine, 58, had said: ‘I’m starting to think the BBC Presenter involved in the scandal should now come forward publicly.
‘These new allegations will result in yet more vitriol being thrown at perfectly innocent colleagues of his. And the BBC, which I’m sure he loves, is on its knees with this.’
Jeremy Vine has urged the unnamed presenter to come forward (Picture: Nordin Catic/Getty Images For The Cambridge Union)
He concluded: ‘But it is his decision and his alone.’
It’s been claimed that a second young person has informed the BBC that they received ‘threatening messages’ from the unnamed presenter after they had been communicating on a dating app.
This comes after the suspended male presenter was recently alleged to have paid a different young person more than £35,000 from when they were 17 years old for sexually explicit images.
The lawyer representing the young person, who is now 20, said that the claims were ‘rubbish’.
However, the individual’s parents stressed that they stood by their allegations, which had been published in The Sun.
On Saturday July 8, Vine tweeted that ‘whoever the “BBC Presenter” in the news is’, it ‘certainly’ wasn’t him, joining the likes of Gary Lineker and Rylan Clark shutting down any rumours that they were the presenter in question.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1.
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MORE : Jeremy Vine calls on unnamed BBC presenter to ‘come forward publicly’
‘I think it’s a strange move for another presenter.’