The BBC was alerted to Gregg Wallace’s “unacceptable” behaviour while filming Inside The Factory more than a year and a half ago, Sky News can confirm.

A memo to staff at the Nestle factory in York shows concerns were raised with both the broadcaster and production company Voltage TV after Wallace’s final visit in February 2023.

The memo, which was shared on the company intranet, says the “experience of some of the team taking part in the filming had not been a pleasant one” and had “compromised” Nestle’s values.

An accompanying letter from Nestle’s head of media relations to the factory manager states: “We have written to the production company… and spoken to the BBC to bring our unacceptable experience to their attention in the hope that it is not repeated in other workplaces around the UK.”

While the letter does not name Wallace directly, it is understood to be in reference to him.

Wallace, who is best known for being a MasterChef presenter, is facing allegations of inappropriate behaviour from more than a dozen people across a range of shows over a 17-year period.

His lawyers have said it’s “entirely false that he engages in behaviour of a sexually harassing nature”.

Wallace quit as co-presenter of Inside the Factory in March 2023, saying he intended to focus on other TV commitments, and his young son, who is autistic.

At the time, there were reports the 60-year-old former greengrocer had offended some staff at the York factory with inappropriate comments.

The company’s memo reiterates a “zero-tolerance approach towards any allegation of discrimination, harassment or bullying of any kind in the workplace, whether this be by an employee, contractor, or visitor”.

It was the programme’s fifth visit to a Nestle site and its third to York, but the memo says “we will not be working with Inside the Factory again in the future” as the show “did not meet our high standards of respect”.

“We will not tolerate any kind of racism, misogyny, homophobia, bullying, exclusion or harassment and we have strict policies in place to deal swiftly and decisively with this kind of behaviour,” the memo adds.

Sky News has contacted representatives for Wallace, and the BBC and Voltage TV for comment.

Earlier on Tuesday, the BBC confirmed it was pulling three repeat episodes of Inside The Factory from the Christmas schedule.

It told Sky News it would not be removing them from iPlayer “at this stage”.

Two celebrity MasterChef Christmas specials have also been removed from the schedule.

Wallace has temporarily stepped down from the cooking show while the complaints are externally reviewed by a law firm.

Groping allegation

More allegations against the presenter surfaced on Tuesday – with two women claiming Wallace had inappropriately touched them.

One told the BBC he “groped” her bottom, while another alleged he laughed after touching her bottom “with his waist and penis” when brushing past her.

A third claimed Wallace’s penis was partially exposed in his dressing room in what she felt was a “power play”.

The Guardian also reported a complaint that he once asked a sign language interpreter to translate “big boobs” and “sexy bum” in front of the audience at the BBC Good Food Show.

Sky News has also asked the BBC and Wallace’s representatives for comment on these claims.

An increasing number of people have accused the presenter of inappropriate sexual comments in recent days, including a former contestant who told Sky News one remark left her crying in the toilets.

Jackie Kearney said she had been “troubled” by Wallace’s “household favourite status” as she felt he was “a bit of a sleaze behind closed doors”.

Another former contestant told Sky News the claims are just the “tip of the iceberg” when it comes to MasterChef.

He claimed to have witnessed a “toxic environment” on set and the problem was “larger” than just the presenter.

On Sunday, Wallace responded with a social media video dismissing his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”.

The remark prompted a huge backlash, with even Downing Street commenting.

He apologised in another clip on Monday, saying he “wasn’t in a good head space” when he posted the previous video.

Read more:
What are the allegations – and what has Wallace said?
‘Middle-aged women’: An epic failure in crisis management

What have the BBC and producers said?

Banijay UK has appointed law firm Lewis Silkin to lead the investigation.

A spokesperson said the company takes complaints “incredibly seriously” but will not comment on individual allegations while the external investigation is ongoing.

“It is important to note that MasterChef welfare processes are regularly adapted and strengthened and there are clear protocols to support both crew and contributors,” the Banijay spokesperson said.

“These include multiple ways of reporting issues, including anonymously.”

In response to reports multiple complaints had been raised with the BBC, a source for the corporation said it would not comment on individuals or any internal HR processes, but that it would be “wrong to report the BBC has done nothing if or when matters have been raised with us – not least because it is already being widely reported there were interventions in both 2017 and 2018 where action was taken”.

Last week, a BBC spokesperson said any issues raised are taken seriously and there are “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,” they said.

Are you free on 9 March 2026?

You might be a traumatised victim of crime, you may be the suspect accused of wrongdoing, either way you’ll be waiting for the next 460 days… and probably beyond.

That’s exactly what we have just seen inside Leicester Crown Court. Not just once, but case after case shunted into 2026.

The judge in court four isn’t doing it by choice but necessity.

“It is sad because it happened a very long time ago,” he says of the next case, as he consigns everyone involved in an already long-running saga to a further two-year wait.

The judge then turns to us, two Sky News journalists sat making notes on his rather mundane case.

“Can I ask why you are here?” he asks directly.

We’d been told the delays in crown courts across the country are becoming intolerable and the system is breaking down – causing enormous stress, anger and dismay to all concerned.

The judge then takes the unusual step of addressing the crisis to us in open court.

“I have cases day in, day out that I am having put over. It can be years, if you lose a date in 2025 it is 2026.

“All these cases you have to decide who gets priority… fraud cases are being put on the back burner. In my position I have cases put over for months, even years.”

As a rule, judges don’t do interviews, so this is as close as we’ll get to hearing what he thinks.

He is clearly exasperated and remarkably candid: “I don’t know where things are going to go but they aren’t going to get any better,” he says.

It is a small audience – two court administrators, two barristers, a defendant and two Sky News journalists – but the judge has had enough of this incredibly slow justice.

He is asking victims, defendants, families on both sides, witnesses, the police, court staff, barristers and solicitors to just keep waiting. Every week the backlog gets bigger.

‘Broken’ system

Leading barrister Mary Prior KC is sad at the crumbling system she navigates every day.

“People are still having trials. People are still having their cases heard. It’s the speed that that’s happening…

“I don’t like saying it’s broken,” she says. “But it is broken because it’s not effective. It’s not functioning in the way it used to function.”

She is the chair of the Criminal Bar Association which represents 3,600 barristers – many of them now exasperated by the gridlock.

“There’s this old saying, isn’t there? Justice delayed is justice denied.

“It’s incredibly difficult to have to look people in the eye and say ‘I’m sorry your trial is going to be adjourned until 2025, 26, 27 and now 2028’,” Ms Prior KC adds.

Between cases, a defence barrister in court four leant backwards to us in the public gallery after the judge’s monologue and said: “Well, what do you expect if you close so many courtrooms?”

Every day around 15% to 20% of court rooms remain idle in England and Wales – cases can’t proceed if there are not enough judges or barristers to run them – but that’s one part of a multi-faceted problem.

The police are charging more people who then need to go to court and on the other side the prisons are backing up and releasing inmates early.

Read more from Sky News:
‘Justice system is letting us down’
Prisoner released early thanks prime minister

Some barristers have had enough and are moving away from criminal law to work in less chaotic areas of the legal profession.

As we walk to the next court we pass a trolley used to shift paperwork around which has been shoved under some stairs. There’s a handwritten sign taped to it reading “DO NOT USE – BROKEN TROLLEY.” It feels symbolic.

Another KC explains to us in the corridor that the nationwide computer system they use for tracking cases and finding the details they need has gone down again. For a few hours, it’s making it impossible for him and his colleagues to effectively represent people.

To cap it off, the prison van for his murder case is two hours late. Again. The two teenagers he is prosecuting for murder arrived just before lunchtime – it happens most days.

The KC is waiting, the judge is waiting, the twelve members of the jury are waiting, the accused teenagers are waiting – the victim’s family is waiting. It’s them who must be suffering the most.

‘The whole system is f***ed!’

We were invited into the barrister’s robing room – which you might think would be quite a grand serene space – it isn’t.

There’s an electrician trying to fix another fault in a box on the wall.

The shared wood topped desk is full of barristers looking harassed with laptops open, their wigs sat next to them – most don’t have the preparation time they need for their next case.

It’s mid-afternoon when a stressed court clerk rushes in.

“I need someone to defend and someone to prosecute right away,” she says apologetically.

The case should have already started but it can’t without barristers to represent both sides. The chaos means there’s no point working out why nobody has turned up, it just happens.

Annabelle Lenton, a young barrister, rolls her eyes, sighs and volunteers.

“I’ve got no idea what is going on today,” she tells us exasperated at having to pick up another case with no time to look at it beforehand.

After the chaos she tells us why it matters to her they keep going.

“If you think about it, if we don’t have a functioning criminal justice system, we are in a position where you have people roaming the streets who are committing serious offences and there’s no retribution for that.

“People aren’t getting justice quick enough and if they’re not… what’s the point in any of it? People will start to give up.”

It’s also one of the reasons why significant numbers of young barristers are moving away from criminal work to other less stressful areas of law.

“It’s f***ing s**t. The whole system is f***ed!”

‘Like the wild west’

Understandably the straight-talking prosecutor we meet next doesn’t want us to use his name but he invites us into one of the tiny and tatty consultation rooms.

“People are now getting away with crimes because of the delays – cases that never actually go ahead because people pull out or there’s nobody to take them. I’d say that’s happening most weeks now.”

He prosecutes big cases in crown courts in the Midlands and the southeast of England.

“It’s bad here in Leicester, Snaresbrook (east London) is like the wild west – biggest court house in Europe with twenty courts, some of them are always empty and the delays are ridiculous.”

In Leicester they even have a ghost court – it’s called courtroom 99. It doesn’t exist – it’s just somewhere to move the cases that won’t get heard on the day they were supposed to.

It leaves victims of crime cast adrift and questioning whether or not to pursue their case.

The chief executive of the charity Victim Support, Katie Kempen, said: “The anxiety, the pressure, the despair, the long waits actually become unbearable for victims, especially when their court date keeps moving, keeps being lost.

“They really prepare themselves… if they find that the case is then adjourned on the day we see real acute distress and despair, sometimes we find that victims just can’t go on and so their opportunity for justice is lost.

“When they can’t actually get that day in court and they can’t actually see justice done for the wrong they’ve been a victim of, it is just absolutely devastating.”

As we leave down the newly gritted steps of the court building in Leicester another man who works for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) stops to chat – also intrigued by our presence.

“It’ll take years to fix,” he says gloomily. “Actually probably a decade.”

As many as 300,000 children aged five to 15 were missing from education in England last year, a report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) has found.

The figures – which compare GP registrations with school enrolment data – mark a 40% increase in unaccounted absences since 2017.

According to the EPI, an estimated 400,000 children are not in school, a 50% increase in seven years. Of these, nearly 95,000 are registered for home education – double the number from 2017.

More than 50,000 students were also found to have left the state education system by Year 11, with no clear records explaining their exits.

Associate director at EPI Whitney Crenna-Jennings said: “Many thousands of children are missing or go missing from education in England – this is a critical issue that demands our attention.”

The data shows that dropouts peak in Year 10, just before students take their GCSEs, making up about a fifth of all exits.

The report also states that vulnerable groups, particularly teenagers, are disproportionately affected.

Read more:
The ‘ghost children’ crisis explained
Thousands are missing school – COVID made the problem worse

Ms Crenna-Jennings added: “These children, often the most vulnerable, face increased risks of harm and poor outcomes.

“The government must work across departments and data systems to ensure every child receives their legal entitlement to education.”

The EPI says schools should document reasons for de-registering students to improve oversight and prevent illegal exclusions.

Campaigners had previously welcomed the register for missing children in the King’s Speech, but this is still not compulsory.

The EPI also recommends that there is a mandatory register by integrating data from education, health and other administrative data sources.

Data from the report uses GP registrations as there is currently no data source able to provide a definitive number of children in England.

Read more from Sky News:
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The new data suggests that better links between different sectors such as education, health, and local authorities are needed to track vulnerable children better.

The report also says more research is needed to develop interventions for preventing disengagement and support for the missing children.