TV show guest Steve Dymond spoke of Jeremy Kyle egging on the audience to “boo him” and was “very upset” after the show’s recording, his son told an inquest into his death.
Mr Dymond, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, is suspected to have taken his own life seven days after filming for the Jeremy Kyle Show in May 2019.
He had taken a lie detector test for the ITV show after being accused of cheating on his ex-fiancee Jane Callaghan, from Gosport.
The inquest at Winchester Coroner’s Court heard that he died at his home in Portsmouth of a combination of morphine overdose and left ventricular hypertrophy in his heart.
Mr Dymond’s son, Carl Woolley, told the inquest that on the day of the filming he received a call from his uncle, Leslie Dymond, to say his father was “very down”.
Mr Woolley said he phoned his father who told him that Jeremy Kyle had “egged on” the audience to “boo him”.
He said his father told him that the “lie detector had cast him as a liar, he said to me he wasn’t lying. He was telling the truth, he was not lying … and asking why it said he had lied”.
He added that his father “was very upset, saying he was being called a liar, everyone had jumped on him, (he was) not with it at all”.
When asked by counsel to the inquest Rachel Spearing who had “jumped on him”, Mr Woolley replied: “Jeremy Kyle had got the crowd to egg on, to boo at him and stuff, he was cast as the liar before he had even spoken.”
Mr Woolley said his father had continued to be “very upset” in the following days and would call him up to six times a day.
He told the inquest: “He was OK at some points but very down.”
He added that he tried to encourage his father to continue getting after-care support from ITV.
He said: “He told me he was getting support and after-care from the show’s counsellors, I explained to him he needed to get in contact with them and keep ringing them to get the after-care that he needed.
“He told me he had rang and I said he needed to get some help – ‘Ring the show, ring the show’.”
Mr Woolley said that the last time his father tried to make contact was a missed call on his phone.
The inquest heard extracts from a note which Mr Dymond left for his son, who told the hearing that he had not been in recent contact with his father prior to the phone call on the day of the filming.
Ms Spearing said: “In the bottom paragraph he says sorry to you, he asks you not to be mad with him and he knows that you will be but he doesn’t know what to say to you.”
She continued: “He expresses pride in you and comments upon your skills as a dad.
“He says: ‘I never ever cheated on Jane and that is what is tearing me to pieces and everyone thinks I am but I’m not a cheat. But I did tell her lies and I lied so much to Jane and that is why she didn’t believe me’.”
The inquest heard a “pen portrait” of Mr Dymond written by his brother, Leslie Dymond, in which he described him as a “brave” man.
In the pen portrait, read aloud by counsel at the coroner’s court, Leslie told of how his brother joined the RNLI when he was young.
“Stephen was dedicated to the RNLI. He would never miss training,” he said.
Leslie described how his brother did “many gruelling tasks” for the institution to rescue people when they got into trouble at sea.
“It was not an easy job… but Stephen showed up every single time,” he said.
“He was so dedicated to his role.”
Leslie said there were times when his brother would be delayed returning to shore from a rescue because the sea was too rough.
“It was a dangerous job. They were very brave men and Stephen was one of them,” he added.
Coroner Jason Pegg told the hearing that the purpose of the inquest was not to “apportion civil or criminal liability” to any person involved.
The hearing continues.
– The Samaritans can be contacted on 116123 or email jo@samaritans.org
