Gregg Wallace whistleblower claims 'nothing was done' when she raised concerns

MasterChef judge Gregg Wallace, who stepped away from his post, has been under fire over his alleged inappropriate behaviour while working on his BBC shows

A former TV producer claims 'nothing was done' when concerns were first raised about Gregg Wallace's behaviour.

The 60-year-old MasterChef judge has been under fire in the past week over his alleged inappropriate behaviour while working on his BBC shows. Wallace, who has hosted MasterChef since 2005, has already denied all the allegations against him through his representatives, but took actions into his own hands on Sunday morning.

Speaking on Instagram, he took aim at people making accusations against him and suggested he had no complaints over the last 20 years of working on TV. Wallace - who stepped away from the show after a probe into complaints about his alleged conduct kickstarted last week, described his accusers as "a handful of middle-class women of a certain age" and also claimed female contestants on MasterChef had made sexual comments of their own.

This week, former producer Georgia Harding - who worked on MasterChef between 2014 and 2015 - alleged Wallace undressed in front of his colleague and "made inappropriate sexual jokes" in front of the crew and in front of people who appeared on the shows. Harding said she was the first member of the production staff to openly speak about his alleged behaviour.

The producer claimed she raised concerns about how Wallace treated contributors but there "appeared to be an acceptance of his behaviour” and that "nothing was done" about it. Harding said: "It was like 'oh that's Gregg'." She claimed to The Telegraph he appeared "too close" to some contestants and "spoke about sex a lot" and "would get changed on set even though he had a changing room."

In his Instagram Stories videos, Gregg challenged the accusations against him and said: "I’ve been doing MasterChef for 20 years. Amateur, Celebrity and Professional MasterChef. And in that time, I have worked with over 4,000 contestants of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all walks of life. And apparently now, I’m reading in the paper, there’s been 13 complaints in that time. In the newspaper I can see the complaints coming from a handful of middle class women of a certain age, just from Celebrity MasterChef. This isn’t right."

He continued in a second video: "In 20 years of television, can you imagine how many women, female contestants, on MasterChef have made sexual remarks or sexual innuendo. Can you imagine?"

And in a further video message to fans, he commented: "This is important to me. Twenty years of doing Celebrity MasterChef, Amateur, Professional, Eat Well For Less, Inside the Factory… Do you know how many staff, all different sorts of staff, can you imagine the people I’ve worked with? Do you know how many staff complained about me in that time? … Absolutely none. Zero. Seriously."

Wallace's lawyers have said "it is entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature." The BBC also released a statement saying: "We take any issues that are raised with us seriously and we have robust processes in place to deal with them. We are always clear that any behaviour which falls below the standards expected by the BBC will not be tolerated.

"Where an individual is contracted directly by an external production company we share any complaints or concerns with that company and we will always support them when addressing them. It would be inappropriate for us to comment on anything that could form part of Banijay's ongoing investigation or otherwise influence it."

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