Review surrounding death of Steve Dymond from Portsmouth after Jeremy Kyle show appearance cancelled after technical issues

Dad-of-one Steve Dymond, 63, of Grafton Street, Buckland, was found dead in his rented room last year just seven days after failing a lie detector test while filming for ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show with his ex-partner Jane Callaghan who accused him of cheating.

Hampshire Coroner Jason Pegg told Friday's hearing that the cause of Mr Dymond's death was a morphine overdose and left ventricular hypertrophy, which is when the left chamber of the heart is not pumping properly.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, previous hearings were cancelled and a remote pre-inquest review was set up for this morning to set out a future date and scope of the inquest.

But technical issues left parties unable to hear to proceedings, with lawyers, for the family, ITV, Southern Health and Mr Dymond’s GP surgery, appearing via video link and the media and other interested parties, including Ms Callaghan, phoning in.

Coroner Jason Pegg said it was ‘disappointing’ for the proceedings to be cancelled but that it was ‘essential’ for the hearing to be heard in public.

In a previous pre-inquest review, held in October last year, barrister Caoilfhionn Gallagher QC told Portsmouth Coroner’s Court that ‘the odds were stacked against her clients’ as a number of documents referred to in reports had not been seen by Mr Dymond’s brother, Lesley, and his cousin, Gerald Brierley – both of whom were present for today’s hearing.

A number of messages including a WhatsApp message from a researcher to a producer about Mr Dymond’s welfare – after the episode was recorded on May 2 – were referred to by ITV in relation to the inquest but not shown to the family.

Ms Gallagher told the court that a researcher said Mr Dymond was ‘really upset and said life is nothing without Jane and words to the effect of “I wish I was dead”.’

She questioned whether if this information was referred to in the WhatsApp message and that the message should be disclosed in court.

The court requested a number of documents to be disclosed by ITV including the WhatsApp message, a behavioural test and results completed by Mr Dymond and a risk assessment, which were to be reviewed by the family’s lawyers ahead of another pre-inquest review which was to be held in November but was cancelled.

All lawyers agreed today that proceedings must be adjourned and provisional dates of October 29 or 30 has been put in place.

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