David Walliams’s ex-girlfriend: Making women sign gag orders common in TV

David Walliams’s ex-girlfriend: Making women sign gag orders common in TV

Teasdale said on social media that she had seen women in the industry being made to sign NDAs for “a lot of years”.

Walliams, 55, is facing a police investigation after allegedly kissing and groping a 15-year-old at his north London home when he was 36.

The Telegraph first revealed allegations against Walliams last year, publishing details of how he had allegedly “harassed” junior female employees at his publisher HarperCollins.

One woman who accused him of inappropriate conduct and sexual harassment signed a separation agreement with a non-disclosure clause and received a five-figure sum.

The latest allegations describe sexual misconduct dating back to 2003, including one woman who claimed that she had sex with Walliams when she was 17.

Following the release of the allegations against Walliams, Lucy Beaumont, a comedian, criticised the use of NDAs.

Beaumont alleged that a young person working in the TV industry had shared concerns with her about Walliams’s conduct, and that she had passed this information on to the Guardian.

She told Sky News: “The reason high-profile people are not saying anything is because they’ll lose work, because you’re seen as you might be a trouble-causer, and it does need to be said that there needs to be some intervention.

“How can there be an NDA taken against someone who feels that she was groomed as a child and is not allowed to speak to even a therapist or a friend?”

Nandy has summoned leaders in television, entertainment, publishing and sport to a meeting early next week.

She said she hoped to “draw a line in the sand” and “take meaningful steps to end abuse and harassment” after Russell Brand’s rape conviction and the publication of claims that Walliams had groomed teenage fans.

In a statement to the Guardian and ITV News after the claims were published, Walliams said: “Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with … I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret.

“And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did.

“I am not a sexual predator … I have not broken the law … I am devastated that some of the women I met 10 to 20 years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me.”

Meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, said the Government should “go further” on restricting the use of non-disclosure agreements in the wake of allegations made against Walliams.

“We do need to look to go further. I think there is scope to go further on this to make sure that we do not see the legal system basically abused in order to silence women,” she told Sky News.

Clarifying that could include a ban, she said: “We cannot have a system where rich and powerful individuals, rich and powerful men, are able to silence women by their silence and stop things coming to light.”

Asked whether injunctions were being misused by “rich men”, she said: “Yes, I believe that they are, and you know, men who seek to commit acts of violence against women or seek to behave in a way that is completely inappropriate will use whatever is available at their disposal to do that.”

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