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Jeremy Kyle nearly killed me: The horrifying result of one women's decision to go on daytime TV's most notorious show

By Richard Price for the Daily Mail
Updated: 18:13 EST, 31 July 2009


For the one-and-a-half-million viewers who tune in to the Jeremy Kyle show on weekday mornings, the frisson of narrowly averted violence is an integral part of the entertainment.

And yet, though the series is quite obviously the televisual equivalent of bear-baiting, as far as its fans are concerned nobody comes to any physical harm.

They are constantly reminded, after all, that a highly trained team of counsellors are on hand, while conflict is limited to raised voices and the occasional wide-eyed lunge before security guards intervene. Reconciled: Rebecca Langley with her mother

Shows aired over the past week include ‘Has my girlfriend been having an affair with my uncle?’ and ‘Mum, don’t have a baby with your alcoholic boyfriend!’

And it is all presided over by the eponymous Jeremy Kyle, a decidedly judgmental ringmaster for someone with a self-confessed gambling addiction.

So far, so tawdry, but no real harm done. But for some participants, the pain and humiliation do not come to a convenient end when the credits roll at 10.30am.

In Rebecca Langley’s case, appearing on the show with her boyfriend earlier this year could very easily have ended in her death. The fragile 23-year-old brunette, who is 4ft 10in in her stockinged feet, was left with a shattered eye socket and cheekbone and livid bite marks on her back.

If she hadn’t managed to escape the beating meted out by her boyfriend Jamie Juste, the father of her two children, she believes he might have killed her.

Juste, 26, is safely behind bars after admitting grievous bodily harm, but received a reduced sentence of just two years for the frenzied assault after the judge concluded that the TV show had ‘fed his insecurities’.

It’s a worryingly familiar story. In 2007, security guard David Staniforth, 45, head-butted his lodger Larry Mahoney on the Jeremy Kyle show’s stage, following the revelation that Mahoney had slept with his wife.

And, last year, Craig Platt, 27, was jailed for pointing a loaded gun at his wife’s head after finding out on the show that he was not the father of their child. Three serious incidents in as many years. Yet ITV, the makers of the show, deny all culpability.

In contrast, they insist, the show provides ‘an opportunity for people to resolve pre-existing disputes and personal issues on neutral territory, with the offer of counselling, mediation and support, which is ongoing following their appearances’.

Significantly, the broadcaster also insists: ‘Procedures are followed to check that couples who undergo lie detector tests as part of the show have no history of violence.’

That, it must be said, was not Rebecca Langley’s experience. She had endured nine years of violence at Juste’s hands before he persuaded her to take part in the show to discuss their differences.

Given that these ‘differences’ revolved around his paranoid conviction that Rebecca had cheated on him - fuelled by his addiction to cocaine - the alarm bells should have been ringing from day one. Blunt: TV presenter Jeremy Kyle

Yet, ITV’s vaunted ‘procedures’ failed to spot that the frightened, diminutive figure who appeared in their studios was lying when she said Juste had never laid a finger on her. Now, her tormentor is locked away, Rebecca admits lying to them out of fear.

Perhaps they were fooled by her appearance and manners. Unlike most of the participants in the show, she comes from a middle-class background. She was brought up in the picturesque village of Ramsay, near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, with her siblings Sarah, 24, and James, 16.

Her grammar school-educated mother, Ann, 44, a former PA who runs her own business, and her father Ian, 48, a successful entrepreneur, did everything they could to pass on the work ethic to their daughter.

But when Rebecca met Juste, a local tearaway, at the age of 14, those high hopes soon lay in tatters. Her near perfect school attendance record dropped until, within a year, she stopped going altogether.

Ann even tried to secure a restraining order from the High Court to keep Juste away from Rebecca, but the application was refused. Mother and daughter have been effectively estranged ever since, further isolating Rebecca, leaving her reliant on Juste.

At 16 she had her first child, a son (Rebecca also has a 22-month-old daughter), and the couple moved into a small house in nearby Bretton, where they lived on state handouts.

Money was tight, as Juste’s alcohol and drug addictions consumed most of the household budget.

While Rebecca stresses Juste never laid a finger on the children, he regularly flew into aggressive rages and left her covered in bruises. His moods revolved around one theme: that he didn’t trust Rebecca and believed she was cheating on him.

‘It was a volatile relationship all the way through,’ she says. ‘When things were going well, he wouldn’t touch me for three or four months, but when they went badly he would hit me.

‘In 2006, I walked out for three months, but as always he managed to talk me into getting back with him.’




In many ways, it was the classic abusive relationship. Rebecca would be beaten but each time she forgave Juste, the destructive co-dependence and isolation deepened. ‘I felt as if I had to stay with him. I had nowhere else to go,’ she says.

It was after nearly a decade of abuse that the Jeremy Kyle show came into their lives.

After a particularly vicious exchange over the Christmas holidays, Juste called the show’s production team. Their story fitted one of its favoured formats perfectly: providing couples who suspect each other of infidelity with free lie detector tests,
a technique designed for use in police investigations.

Rebecca was immediately concerned - justifiably so, as it transpired - but, as usual, gave in to Juste’s bullying.

The production team swiftly organised free transport to Manchester, where the show is filmed, hotel accommodation and complimentary food and drink. Throughout this time,
Rebecca was petrified, but her trepidation provoked Juste’s anger.

‘The night before the show was being recorded I told him I didn’t want to go want to go through with it,’ she says.

‘He just thought I was hiding something and it caused a huge row. I wanted to prove my innocence - to stop him thinking I’d actually cheated on him - so I relented. I felt as if I had no choice.’

The next morning they were separated before entering the studio. They had previously picked the questions they would ask each other - whether they had passionately kissed, had sexual contact or slept with anyone else.

Members of the production team then arrived to brief them. It was only then that the show’s true motives gan to emerge. Behind bars: Jamie Juste

'They say such things as: "If Jeremy Kyle says anything you disagree with, you tell him straight." They try to get you angry and wind you up.

They ask: “What are you going to do if this lie detector test comes back and shows that he was lying?” I felt as if they were trying to get me riled up.’

Unfortunately for Rebecca, there was one trap she could not avoid. In 2006, during her three-month separation from Juste, she had kissed another man - something she had never told him for fear of the consequences.

Rebecca says: ‘It was just one kiss at, at the time, I admit it meant quite a lot to me. I dared to hope that it might be the start of something special, that there might be life after Jamie, but, in the end, I went back to him.’

Having agreed to be asked if she had ever kissed anyone, Rebecca knew she would have to lie.

The test is taken off screen and to heighten the drama the results are kept under wraps until the moment Jeremy Kyle opens an envelope and reveals them on screen, giving him the opportunity to humiliate Rebecca.

‘My lie detector results said that I was lying,’ she admits tearfully. ‘Jeremy Kyle was quite abrupt. He read out the first answer, said “You were lying” and threw the card across the studio.’

What happened next was worse. The polygram test, which works by sensing a rise in the pulse rate or body temperature, detected that she had lied a second and third time - when asked had she had sexual contact with anyone or slept with anyone else.

‘Jeremy read out the second result and said “You were lying” and threw the card again. Then, on the third, he said: “Full house - you were lying.” I was so shocked I walked off the stage.’

As she fled, Juste launched into a foul-mouthed rant. ‘The man who did the lie detector test did tell me about a possible domino effect,’ says Rebecca. ‘That if someone answered one question incorrectly, there was a possibility the others could also come back false.’

During the lie detector test, Juste had to answer three slightly different questions about people he was alleged to have cheated with. He, too, was found to be lying on all three counts.

Rebecca was offstage and did not hear this, but says now it was no surprise. Time, surely, for the fabled army of counsellors to step forward and ensure the couple - wound up to the point of near meltdown - were provided with support to overcome their differences.

‘One of the counsellors spent five minutes with us, and said: “Good luck, we’re going to send you home now.” They then came in and gave us our tickets home,’ says Rebecca.

When they returned home, the violence escalated, with Juste losing his temper and hitting Rebecca several times. She persuaded him to ring the show’s team three weeks later so they could organise counselling, but they were given just a one-hour session with a therapist, who gave Juste some exercises to ease his paranoia.

They were promised another session, but heard nothing.

‘They don’t care about you once you’ve been on the show,’ says Rebecca.

When the episode aired in March, Rebecca desperately tried to dissuade Juste from watching it, but he insisted on doing so. And, with depressing inevitability, an argument flared up.

‘He was in a violent rage and slapped me across the face,’ she says. ‘He kicked me and bit me - I had two full bite marks on each shoulder.

‘He kept saying that if I admitted I’d cheated, he would stop. So, I told him I’d cheated to make him stop. He kicked me in the eye while I was on the floor. In the end, I went blank. I just wanted it to be over.’

Although her baby daughter was sleeping in the next room, Rebecca had to grab her chance to escape.

‘When he stopped hitting me to go to the toilet, I grabbed the keys,’ she says. ‘I had no shoes - nothing. I just ran.

‘He was shouting out of the window: “I love you. Come back, please.” But I think he’d have carried on hitting me. I’m not sure I would have survived.’

Rebecca was hospitalised with severe head and face injuries. She decided to press charges and got back in touch with her parents. Battered and bruised: Rebecca Langley after the attack

Juste pleaded self-defence, but he dropped this before the case reached Peterborough Crown Court last week, when he was jailed for two years.

During his verdict, Judge Sean Enright told him: ‘The sentence would have been higher still but for the involvement of the TV show, which seems to have fed your insecurities.

‘I have not seen this show, which I believe is classified as light entertainment, but there is plainly an element of cruelty and exploitation in what takes place.’

There are, of course, many questions to be asked of Rebecca. Why, for example, did she stand by someone who was a cocaine user?

Rebecca says she has never touched the drug, and there is clear evidence that she
had been ground down by an abusive relationship to the point where she felt there was nowhere else to turn.

While her mother, Ann, is delighted to be reunited with her daughter, she will never forgive the Jeremy Kyle show, who she believes must shoulder some of the blame for the attack on Rebecca.

‘We would never dream of being associated with the Jeremy Kyle show. I want it off the air,’ she says.

As for Rebecca, she says: ‘I’d advise anyone thinking of appearing on the show to think of the consequences. What happened that day caused my injuries. I do blame the show for that.’

ITV maintains its stance that the circumstances of Juste’s crime are exceptional. A spokesman says: ‘Our aftercare provision is a key part of how the show aims to resolve conflict in our guests’ relationships.

‘Rebecca and her partner were seen by a mental health nurse after they left the studio, who advised them on a number of issues to help improve their relationship.

‘The production team maintained contact with them following the show, which resulted a week later in an initial offer of two counselling sessions and they were put in contact with a therapist.

‘We are dismayed that, in this case, Rebecca did not disclose details of the previous violence that she now says existed.

‘We refute any suggestion that Rebecca was manipulated by our production team prior to the show. Before each show, guests are asked how they would deal with potential outcomes to enable our team to assess their possible reactions.’

However, even the show’s staff admit its failings. ‘The show encourages guests into unnatural, emotionally charged confrontations, lights the touchpaper and then retires
to a safe and judgmental distance,’ says former producer Charlotte Scott.

‘Guests are wound up like a coiled spring. It is an integral part of preparations - a process, sanctioned by the show’s editors, called “talking up”. The whole show is designed to produce a gladiatorial-style exchange.’

There will, of course, still be those who have little sympathy for the flawed individuals who choose to air their dirty laundry in public. But the next time you switch on your TV at
9.30am for a spot of light entertainment, bear in mind the poor children who had no choice in the matter.

Innocent children, such as Rebecca’s who, despite their wafer thin ‘anonymity’, will face playground taunts and family heartache, are the true victims of this vile circus.


Jeremy Kyle nearly killed me: The horrifying story of one women's decision to go on daytime TV's most notorious show
