Tony Livesey steps back from 5 Live after allegations against David Sullivan
BBC presenter Tony Livesey has stepped back from his 5 Live show following allegations against his former colleague David Sullivan.
Several women have accused Sullivan, a billionaire businessman and West Ham co-owner, of abusing his power and preying on them for sex, in some cases when they were teenagers. Sullivan has strongly denied the allegations.
Livesey previously worked as editor-in-chief of Sullivan’s Sport newspapers and now presents a weeknight show on BBC Radio 5 Live.
The BBC said Livesey had asked to take a break from presenting the show while the issues raised by the investigation are being examined.
The claims against Sullivan were made in a joint investigation by the Times and BBC Panorama.
One alleged victim said that Livesey had arranged a meeting between her and Sullivan in 1999.
Livesey said he had “no recollection” of introducing the young woman to Sullivan and that it was “not part” of his job to do so.
He added that he had “great sympathy for a woman who may have become a victim”, but rejected any suggestion that he had played “any role whatsoever in that scenario” and said he found the allegation “abhorrent”.
Livesey told the Times he had had “practically zero” contact with anyone appearing in the paper, such as female models.
A BBC spokesman said: “The Panorama investigation included allegations about Tony Livesey which we take seriously. We also note Tony has firmly denied the allegations.
“He has asked to step back from presenting his radio show for a short period and we will be considering the matters raised by the programme. We will not be commenting further at this stage.”
Livesey’s topical three-hour programme is broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live from Monday to Thursday, featuring interviews and phone calls from listeners.
The presenter has worked for the BBC since 2006, the year he left the newspaper, and has appeared on 5 Live since 2010.
The allegations against Sullivan from seven women span decades, starting in the 1980s.
All come from women who were in their late teens or early twenties and were young models seeking work at Sullivan’s Daily and Sunday Sport newspapers.
They accuse Sullivan of sexually exploitative and predatory behaviour, including pressuring them for sex during business meetings, where he offered to boost their careers if they slept with him or gave him oral sex.
Sullivan has denied the allegations, and in a statement issued on Saturday called them “factually incorrect and entirely false” and the result of a “fundamentally unfair” investigation.
The investigation also looked at a feature which ran in the Sport newspapers called “Countdown to 16” where readers were teased with photos of partially clothed schoolgirls. Then, the girls’ 16th birthdays were announced with the publication of topless photos.
At the time, 16 was the minimum age someone could legally appear topless. It was raised to 18 in 2004.
Livesey claimed in a book he wrote about his time at the papers that he and Sullivan had invented the feature.
He now denies this, telling the BBC it was “categorically” not his idea and that large parts of his book were fictionalised to make it appear that he “was at the centre of all stories”.
