Barker forced to leave BBC ‘by the back door’

Sue Barker has said she was made to leave by the back door when the BBC let her go so she would not see Phil Tufnell and Matt Dawson.

Speaking at the Hay Literary Festival, Barker said she was with the Question of Sport, Extra Time copresenters when she got a message from the boss of BBC Studios asking to meet her “for five minutes after the final show finishes”. She said that when Tufnell and Dawson also received messages, the trio sat in Wagamama “thinking ‘who’s going to get sacked?’”. As she left her meeting, the boss said: “No, can you leave by that door. I don’t want you to see the boys.” Barker said: “It felt like a detention at school.”