Stephen Nolan 'deeply sorry' after explicit image allegations

BBC presenter Stephen Nolan has apologised after a newspaper published allegations he sent sexually explicit photographs of a potential guest.

The Irish News listed claims concerning Mr Nolan including an allegation that he sent images of Stephen Bear to his television production team in 2016.

On Friday, Mr Nolan said an image had been widely available on the internet and he had been "talking to a long-term friend and peer outside of work".

He said that he was "deeply sorry".

BBC News NI has not been able to independently verify the claims published by the Irish News.

The paper alleged that in 2016, while the production team on Nolan Live were attempting to book the reality TV contestant Stephen Bear for the programme, Mr Nolan had sent them two sexually explicit images of Bear.

According to the Irish News, the BBC subsequently carried out an investigation in 2018 following a complaint by a member of staff about the images.

Among the other allegations reported in the Irish News were that a BBC staff member had separately made a formal complaint of bullying against Mr Nolan.

However, according to the paper, that complaint was not upheld.

Mr Nolan addressed the allegations at the beginning of his Radio Ulster programme this morning.

"We have had days, as you probably know, of headlines about me and the Nolan team in the papers this week and I am not ignoring the story," he said.

"It's just that the BBC has processes in place to deal with staff complaints and I do, and need to, totally respect those processes. They have got to be confidential for them to work.

"I can say one thing though and that is that I'm sorry.

"There was a photograph, it was widely available on the internet and I was talking to a long-term friend and peer outside of work. I am deeply sorry."

In December 2022, Bear was found guilty of disclosing a private sexual film after a video of him having sex with a woman was published online.

Meanwhile, on Friday Mr Nolan also addressed allegations that members of BBC staff were placed in the audience of the Nolan Live TV show and said they were "completely, categorically false".

"There have been other headlines, too, including a suggestion that we manipulate programmes by planting staff in the studio audience," he said in a statement on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

"I can speak about that on the record.

"That is completely, categorically false.

"We don't do that in the Nolan team.

"We value our relationship with you far too much to compromise it."

The director of BBC Northern Ireland, Adam Smyth, has also contacted the Irish News about that specific allegation.

In an email sent to the paper's editor Noel Doran, Mr Smyth said he was writing "formally to request an immediate apology and retraction" for the paper's claim staff posed as audience members.

In a strongly-worded email, Mr Smyth said he "did not wish to play down any of the allegations made" by the Irish News this week and "it is right that, as a publicly-funded broadcaster, the BBC is scrutinised and held accountable".

However, Mr Smyth wrote that on Tuesday the paper had reported that members of staff on Nolan Live would "be placed in the audience either to raise their hands and make a controversial point or to relay to the production team if they spotted 'someone feisty'".

Mr Smyth said this implied that "at best, that we [the BBC] manipulated the debate from the studio floor and, at worst, that we attempted to deceive viewers by passing off staff members as members of the public" and he called on the paper to retract those claims.

In statement Mr Doran said: "The Irish News has firm evidence setting out the circumstances in which junior members of staff were placed in the audience of Nolan Live.

"At no stage did we suggest that senior BBC executives were involved in this process."