The landlady of tragic TV guest Steve Dymond has told an inquest into his death that he was “distraught” and a “broken man” after the recording of the Jeremy Kyle Show.
The 63-year-old, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, is believed to have taken his own life seven days after filming for the ITV show in May 2019.
The Winchester inquest heard he was “booed” by the audience during the filming after a lie detector test suggested he had been lying about having not cheated on his partner Jane Callaghan.
Mr Dymond had rung ITV 40 to 50 times in “desperate” attempts to become a guest on the show, the inquest previously heard.
Landlady Michelle Thaxter told the hearing: “My connection to him, he come to stay with us for a few weeks, he was looking for somewhere to live, he had split up from his partner and we had a room.”
She said Mr Dymond had called her after they had advertised the room, saying he “was just a really, really nice guy”.
Mrs Thaxter added: “He said he had split up from his partner and he was staying in a hotel, and it was costing him a lot of money.”
When read a text message during the hearing sent by Mr Dymond stating that he had woken her and her son up after taking an overdose on March 31, she said that she was “shocked” and added: “It didn’t happen.”
Mrs Thaxter said that he initially stayed at her home in Portsmouth for about six weeks before he moved out after getting back together with Miss Callaghan.
She added: “He had mentioned before about going on the Jeremy Kyle Show and my words were to him that I think it’s stupid because he could hear things he didn’t want to hear, but it wasn’t my business.”
He said he wanted to go on the show “because Jane thought he was sleeping or seeing some other woman, but he wanted to prove, tell her that he wasn’t, my opinion, I don’t think he was.
“He really did love her but he wanted to prove to her that he wasn’t lying.”
She continued: “All he wanted was to get back with this woman, he absolutely loved her, he adored her.”
Mrs Thaxter added: “He wasn’t a happy man and he wasn’t a well man, at times he could hardly walk.”
She said that after the show recording, Mr Dymond, in a “distraught” state, asked to stay again at her home.
Mrs Thaxter said: “He said he failed the lie detector test and he said he felt when he was in the taxi he was going to jump out of the taxi and take the (prescribed medication).
“You can’t say no to someone when they are so distressed.
“It scared me that someone could feel like that, it was horrible.”
She added: “He was distraught, the man was broken, he was crying.
“He literally had nowhere else to go, he said he had called his mum but she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
“He was crying, I have never seen a man crying like that, he was so upset.”
She said Mr Dymond had told her the audience had “booed” him, adding: “He said ‘Jeremy backed me into a corner’. Very uncomfortable.”
She said Mr Dymond told her that he was upset by “how he was treated on the show, he was saying he had told too many lies”.
She added that she had told him to focus on his son, who he had just become reconnected with and found out he had three grandchildren.
She continued: “It was all about Jane, ‘I didn’t lie’, he was just distraught, I have never seen someone so upset about everything.
“A lot of it was to do with the show, with Jane, with his family, I think he had many worries, it’s all life, he was a mess.
“I think he had dug himself into such a deep hole about everything and he couldn’t see a way out.”
Mrs Thaxter said she last saw Mr Dymond on May 5 and had become worried until her son looked into their lodger’s room from the balcony and saw him and called her to return home.
She said: “Everything was going through my mind and I opened the door, and I could see straight away the man was dead.”
She said that she then called for the emergency services, which attended.
Mrs Thaxter added that she still received financial bills for Mr Dymond and added: “I think he was out to impress Jane, leading a life he couldn’t afford.”
Mr Dymond had been diagnosed with a depressive disorder in 1995 and had taken overdoses on four occasions – in January 1995, twice in December 2002 and in April 2005, the court was told.
It also heard he had attempted to harm himself in December 2002.
After his first application to attend the show was rejected because he had been diagnosed with depression and prescribed medication, Mr Dymond obtained a letter from his GP stating he had not taken the medication and his mood had improved.
He was subsequently assessed by mental health nurse Steph MacDonald employed by the show as suitable to appear as he had not “scored for depression” in her evaluation of him.
Mr Kyle defended his handling of Mr Dymond during the recording, saying he had tried to “de-escalate” the situation and added that the selection of guests and their aftercare “were not my responsibility, I was the presenter”.
Mrs Thaxter’s son Sam Kendall said in a statement read to the hearing that Ms Callaghan had split from Mr Dymond because she “had found pictures on his laptop or computer that led her to believe he was cheating”.
Mr Kendall said that Mr Dymond was in a “bad way” after the show recording and added: “Steve did tell me he was absolutely mortified at the way Jeremy Kyle spoke to him on the show.
“He said he had still been in touch with the producers of the show and because of Steve having a heavy cold the lie detector may have given a wrong reading.”
He added: “I noted that Steve’s attitude had changed towards Jane as he had heard she had been slagging him off in Gosport to his friends.
“I know that he was worried about people finding out that he had been on the Jeremy Kyle show. Steve was adamant he had not cheated on Jane and he was going to prove this to her.
“Steve did tell me that he did think about ‘throwing myself over’ or words to that effect.
“Steve didn’t expand on this and we continued a normal conversation, I thought this was a figure of speech and I had no suspicion he would ever hurt himself.”
He added that Mr Dymond was “kind and caring and wouldn’t hurt anyone”.
Rachel Spearing, counsel to the inquest (CTI), said that the incident log produced by Hampshire police stated that officers had been informed by paramedics that Mr Dymond had been “deceased for approximately two days” when his body was found on May 9.
She added that there were “notes and letters left for family”.
The hearing continues.
