The BBC has admitted it knew about allegations against Scott Mills almost a year before they moved to sack the star.
The Radio 2 DJ, 53, was stunningly axed by the Corporation on Monday six days after being hauled off air following what proved to be his final breakfast show.
Last night, the Daily Mirror linked the decision to fire Mills to a 2018 police investigation into ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy between 1997 and 2000. The case was dropped around seven years ago due to a lack of evidence.
The boy in question was ‘under 16 years of age’ at the time of the alleged offences and came forward decades later, the Daily Mail revealed today.
And in a further humiliation for the BBC, it has emerged the broadcaster was contacted by a former presenter regarding alleged ‘inappropriate communications’ involving Mills, the Telegraph reports.
Freelance journalist Anna Brees told the Corporation in May 2025 she had received details of the allegations – not necessarily relating to the same alleged victim about which Mills was questioned in 2018 – from a source.
She asked whether the BBC was ‘ever aware of or involved in any related matters’ and if it had ever been handed any ‘formal or informal complaints’ about Mills ‘relating to safeguarding, inappropriate conduct or harassment’.
Ms Brees – who presented news programmes for the broadcaster between 2003 and 2011 – also inquired as to whether the Corporation had ever investigated its star DJ’s behaviour.
The BBC has admitted it knew about allegations against Scott Mills, pictured this month, almost a year before they moved to sack the star
Mills pictured with Emily Atack at his house in 2012. He previously explained how he regretted participating in some of the shows he had appeared on
The Radio 2 DJ, pictured, was stunningly axed by the Corporation on Monday six days after being hauled off air following what proved to be his final breakfast show
But she claims she was rebuffed on all fronts, never receiving a response from the BBC.
On Tuesday the broadcaster admitted her information ‘should have been followed up and we should have asked further questions’.
A spokesperson for the BBC said: ‘We received a press query in 2025 which included limited information.
‘This should have been followed up and we should have asked further questions. We apologise for this and will look into why this did not happen.
‘More broadly, we would always urge anyone who has concerns or information to raise it with us.’
Ms Brees said: ‘It was a credible source and I was concerned so I decided to contact the BBC to make them aware of it and see if they came back with anything. I didn’t get a response.’
The suggestion the Corporation acted too slowly in dismissing one of its top stars contains echoes of its heavy-footed approach to investigating the likes of Jimmy Savile, Huw Edwards and Gregg Wallace.
The BBC is refusing to say why he was sacked other than that it was related to his ‘personal conduct’. The broadcaster is now under pressure to explain what they knew about Mills’s brush with police and when.
The teenage boy who accused Mills of serious sexual offences in the 1990s was under 16, it was claimed today.
The broadcaster, who would have been 24 at the time of the allegations, was later questioned by police under caution in 2018.
Scotland Yard has confirmed detectives sent a file to the Crown Prosecution Service who rejected the case due to a lack of evidence. The police investigation was closed in 2019.
The Daily Mail can also reveal that the complainant may have been inspired to speak out again this year due to the new Huw Edwards docu-drama.
Two sources have said that within the BBC it is being claimed that the unnamed man may have gone to the corporation due to the huge publicity surrounding Martin Clunes starring in Power: The Downfall Of Huw Edwards.
Former police officer and now investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas said police contacts confirmed to him that Mills was interviewed by the Met in 2018 – in a spin-off investigation from Operation Yewtree.
Mr Williams-Thomas helped expose Jimmy Savile and his work led to the police investigation against Savile and others including Rolf Harris.
He told the Daily Mail today: ‘The police were swamped with allegations post-Savile and as a result it let to high-profile stars being named [by complainants], one of these was Scott Mills. He wasn’t charged – but was allowed to continue working’.
Mills joined BBC Radio 1 in 1998 from Heart 106.2, where he started in 1995 after working in local radio in Hampshire, Bristol and Manchester. He left the BBC after 28 years yesterday.
A source has claimed that the director general at the time of the police probe, Tony Hall, did not know about the allegations.
One BBC executive in London told the Daily Mail today that there’s a real belief amongst bosses at the corporation that the timing of Mills’s sacking and the release of the Edwards drama was ‘not a coincidence’.
‘The Huw Edwards drama showed that there could be a reckoning’, they said.
Another senior broadcaster at the BBC added that this claim that the Edwards drama was the ‘spark’ is swirling around Broadcasting House.
Last night the Daily Mirror reported the decision to fire Mills came after a 2016 police investigation into ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy.
The BBC declined to comment on why he was not suspended or sacked at the time and why they have fired him almost a decade later.
Mills is pictured enjoying a boozy night out with Alan Carr in 2009
Mills married his long-term partner Sam Vaughan at a celebrity-studded wedding in Barcelona in 2024. They are pictured at an awards ceremony in February this year
Mills pictured earlier in his career. He joined the BBC in 1998 after starting his career in local radio at home in Hampshire
Another senior broadcaster at the BBC has said there is ‘total shock’ at the corporation after Mills’s sacking.
There were apparently ‘audible gasps’ from staff as they were told on Monday morning in an email from BBC director of music Lorna Clarke.
Several stars who have spent time with him described him as ‘kind and generous’ and that friends are ‘devastated’ for him.
He was also described by a radio colleague as ‘hugely popular’ internally.
‘It is not like the BBC to act so fast’, a household name broadcaster told the Daily Mail.
Another source claimed that wild rumours are flying around Broadcasting House about the reason for his sacking.
‘No suspension period or prolonged investigation does not bode well’, another insider said.
