A Jeremy Kyle guest sent a final message to his fiancee telling her that the ITV show ‘are responsible for what happens now’ before he died in a suspected suicide after failing a live lie detector test, his inquest heard today.

Steve Dymond, 63, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, is suspected to have taken his own life seven days after filming for the controversial programme in May 2019.

He had taken a lie detector test for the programme after being accused of cheating on Jane Callaghan, from Gosport, who wiped her eyes with a tissue while giving evidence to the inquest on Tuesday.

Winchester Coroner’s Court heard that Mr Dymond died at his home of a combination of morphine overdose and left ventricular hypertrophy in his heart.

On May 6 2019, Mr Dymond sent a WhatsApp to Ms Callaghan saying: ‘This will be the last time I say it, I was never, never ever unfaithful to you, in all the time we were together.

‘I hope The Jeremy Kyle Show is so happy now, as to what they have done to me.

‘I did lie about my past, but not about me being a cheat, I never ever did cheat on you.

‘They are responsible for what happens now, I hope this makes good ratings for them, I bet they keep this quiet.

‘Never did I cheat on you, never, never. My final words. I did try to explain to you, but you would not listen.’

Extracts from a note he left for Ms Callaghan were read out in court in which Mr Dymond said: ‘I pushed and pushed for the Jeremy Kyle Show to prove to Jane I never ever did (cheat on her). But it all went wrong.

‘I failed because I lied about my past. Now I have lost you forever.’

Earlier today, presenter Jeremy Kyle was accused of ‘pouncing on’ Mr Dymond and ‘throwing him under the bus’  by urging the audience to ‘boo’ him after he failed the lie detector test over his faithfulness. 

Mr Dymond’s long-awaited inquest heard that he sobbed as he called his son after filming the ITV show and ‘couldn’t understand why he had been deemed guilty’ of cheating on his partner Jane Callaghan, then 48.

Today, Ms Callaghan told the court that her partner – a regular viewer – had been ‘excited’ about going on the show to prove he had remained faithful. 

Giving evidence, she said she met Mr Dymond on a dating site in May 2017, broke up in February 2019 and then rekindled their relationship towards the end of March that year. 

Ms Callaghan said the plan from March 31, 2019 was to contact The Jeremy Kyle Show.

‘It was Steve’s idea and then we did talk about a private one as well but we just thought Jeremy Kyle would be quicker,’ she said. She clarified that she meant a ‘private’ lie detector test.

Counsel to the inquest Rachel Spearing asked: ‘The plan was to access the show so that Steve could do a lie detector test to prove… that he hadn’t cheated and that would satisfy your concerns and then you could move forward with your relationship?’

‘Yes,’ Ms Callaghan said.

Ms Callaghan said Jeremy Kyle was ‘a bit rude’ to Mr Dymond when he appeared on the presenter’s show.

Asked if she had any concerns over Mr Kyle’s behaviour to Mr Dymond, she told the inquest: ‘Jeremy was a bit rude to Steve and said he wouldn’t trust him with a chocolate button and this was before the results. So yeah he didn’t know Steve, didn’t know nothing about him.’

The court heard Mr Dymond asked to speak with Ms Callaghan immediately after the show while they were still at the studio.

‘He was just saying, begging me saying it was wrong it’s not right, it’s not the truth, it’s wrong, it’s wrong,’ Ms Callaghan said.

She added that the pair left the studio separately and that later Mr Dymond continued to protest his innocence, saying: ‘He just kept saying that it was wrong, the lie detector was wrong.

‘Jeremy was telling me that he goes by the tests, not to bother with Steve, that he was a waste of time. 

‘He was speaking to his brother on his phone and he just kept saying ‘it’s all wrong, it’s all wrong’, and then he just left.’

‘I wasn’t communicating with him really,’ she went on. ‘After that I just wanted him out of my life.’

Ms Callaghan also said ITV initially told Mr Dymond he couldn’t appear on the show as he had been prescribed anti-depressants – until he proved to them he had not been taking them. 

She told the inquest she initially believed the lie detector test was 100% reliable and accurate but later changed her mind.

‘If I knew he had not cheated then we could work through his lies’, she told the court. ‘I thought he should call up. For closure, just to make sure he had not cheated.

‘I think Steve phoned them quite a few times. [ITV called] every day. 20 minutes on the phone, then five minutes later they would call again and it would be half an hour. It just went like that.

‘He was excited to go on there, he wanted to get closure. He said he had lied quite a lot but said he had not cheated. We wanted to get on with our lives. We both saw it as a new start.’

Extracts from a note he left for Ms Callaghan were read aloud in court in which Mr Dymond said: ‘I pushed and pushed for the Jeremy Kyle Show to prove to Jane I never ever did (cheat on her).

‘But it all went wrong. I failed because I lied about my past. Now I have lost you forever.’

Ms Callaghan wiped her eyes with a tissue in the witness box.

On May 6 2019, Mr Dymond sent a WhatsApp to Ms Callaghan saying: ‘This will be the last time I say it, I was never, never ever unfaithful to you, in all the time we were together.

‘I hope The Jeremy Kyle Show is so happy now, as to what they have done to me.

‘I did lie about my past, but not about me being a cheat, I never ever did cheat on you.

‘They are responsible for what happens now, I hope this makes good ratings for them, I bet they keep this quiet.

‘Never did I cheat on you, never, never. My final words. I did try to explain to you, but you would not listen.’  

Mr Dymond, a digger driver, was found dead at his home in Portsmouth, Hants, on May 9, 2019.

A week earlier, on May 2, Mr Dymond had been in Salford filming the episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show – which has never been aired – trying to prove to Ms Callaghan, from Gosport, Hants, he was faithful.

Mr Dymond and Ms Callaghan had broken up in February in 2019 after she accused the construction worker of cheating.

On May 13, four days after Mr Dymond’s death in his £100-a-week rented room, ITV abruptly pulled The Jeremy Kyle Show off air.

The show, which ran for 14 years, was criticised for airing domestic disputes and publicly shaming Brits who appeared on the show.

Today at Hampshire Coroners Court in Winchester, Hants, the full inquest finally got underway after six previous hearings and cancellations.

Opening the five-day hearing, senior coroner for Hampshire Jason Pegg said it is not the purpose of the inquest to ‘apportion civil or criminal liability or blame to any person’ and that ‘nobody is on trial’.

‘At the heart of the inquest is the family of Mr Dymond’, Mr Pegg said.

It was heard Mr Pegg will consider Mr Dymond’s participation in the show and his reaction to the lie detector test, but will not address ‘broader systemic issues of participation in reality TV’ and ‘family and victim support after the death’.

A post-mortem revealed that there was a ‘potentially lethal’ amount of morphine in Mr Dymond’s system as well as left ventricular hypertrophy, a form of heart failure.

Both were ‘independently capable of causing death’ however the pathologist concluded it was a combination of both.

It was heard Mr Dymond penned a note that was found after his death.

In the note, Mr Dymond said: ‘I just don’t want to be here no more, my life feels empty without Jane, I love her so much.’

He went on to call himself ‘a liar, not a cheat’, adding: ‘I never ever cheated on Jane and that’s what’s tearing me to pieces, everyone thinks I am but I’m not a cheat.

‘But I did tell her lies, so much lies, and that’s why she didn’t believe me.’

He also asked his son Carl Woolley ‘not to be mad’, that he ‘doesn’t know what to say’ and that ‘sorry is not enough’, but told him he was ‘proud’.

Giving evidence at the hearing, Mr Woolley said he didn’t have a ‘great deal of contact’ with his father until his uncle Leslie – Mr Dymond’s brother – called him following the show.

‘The day of The Jeremy Kyle Show… I had a call from Leslie who had been in touch with [Mr Dymond], he was very distraught, had been on The Jeremy Kyle Show, and was it OK to give him my number as well to see if I could help.

‘I called him, he was in a taxi… I’m sure he was with his partner Jane as I could hear her in the background.

‘He was very upset and not really making much sense. Really upset. He said he had a lie detector test class him as a liar and that he was not a liar and was telling the truth.’

Mr Woolley said his father told him ‘Jeremy Kyle had got the crowd to egg on, to boo at him and stuff, and he was cast as a liar before he had even spoken.’

Mr Woolley continued: ‘You could hear from the sound of his voice that he was upset, that there was tears.

‘I tried to speak to him, tried to console him, told him everything was going to be alright and to go home and get some rest.

‘He was so emotional that day. I said ‘why did you go on a show like that, you know what it’s all about’ and he said he wanted to do it like that for his partner.’

Mr Woolley said it was his opinion that the show existed for ‘good TV’ for people to go on to be made an ‘idiot’ of.

Mr Woolley said he had phone calls with his father every day after the show but ’90 per cent’ of the conversations came back to The Jeremy Kyle Show and the lie detector results.

‘He could not understand why he had been deemed guilty’, Mr Woolley said. ‘He told me that he was getting support, after care, from the show’s counsellors.’

Mr Woolley encouraged his father to utilise the after care from ITV. He said he rang them. I kept saying he needs to get the after care from the show.’

Mr Woolley also said his father said he had been ‘thrown under a bus’ on the show as the crowd booed him.

‘He said he had been taken for a mug, pounced on by the presenter’, Mr Woolley said

‘He told me he was made out to be the baddie and that no one had given him a chance to put his point across and that Jeremy Kyle was constantly on him. He said he felt he was thrown under a bus.’

Mr Woolley said Mr Dymond had called him around ten times after filming on the show and been bothered by the crowd booing.

‘From what he said to me, he was brought on and the crowd was booing him,’ he said. I said to him, what did he expect going on a show like that and he said he didn’t realise he would be made a mockery of.’ 

Mr Woolley said he thought the impact of his father’s appearance on the show ‘got too much’.

Asked why he thought that, he told the hearing: ‘From the conversations we had and how he felt from the show. He just couldn’t carry on – just didn’t know where to go.’

Neil Sheldon KC, representing Kyle, said after the show Mr Woolley warned Ms Callaghan to steer clear of his father.

Mr Sheldon KC said: ‘On the evening of May 2, which was the appearance on the show, she says that you told her she should get as far away from Steve as you could and you told her Steve was no good and asked for her phone number.’

Mr Dymond’s brother, Leslie, said in a statement that Mr Diamond was ‘consumed’ by what had happened on Jeremy Kyle. 

‘He was mostly very distressed and consumed by what had happened on the show,’ Leslie said. 

‘He repeated that he had the result of a lie detector test which he did not agree with pushed in his face, and (was) called a traitor, with the presenter and audience all heckling him.

‘Stephen told me he had been at the point of collapsing at the studio but he was still heckled.

‘He mentioned trying to leave via a side door but that it was locked and so he could not escape the jeering.

‘He told me he had been on his hands and knees as he thought he was going to pass out from fear and stress.

‘It was like he had been brainwashed by all the aggressive behaviour and I kept trying to tell him it was rubbish and he should get on with his life, not letting this drag him down.

‘He said he was worthless and that he could not face life any more.’

Leslie said he had ‘never heard’ his brother ‘be so disturbed by anything before’ when he recounted their conversations in the days after his appearance on ITV. 

His statement continued: ‘We did talk about what support Stephen was getting from the show and he told me he was supposed to get it but nothing had been arranged.

‘I tried to convince Stephen to see his doctor or visit a counsellor as it was clear to me that he was not coping at all and although at times I thought I was getting somewhere, he clearly needed professional help, but the reality was this was a long bank holiday weekend.

‘He told me he had contacted the show since the filming but that he had not heard anything about help being provided.

‘I was horrified to hear what had happened to Stephen and I had never heard him talk this way or be so disturbed by anything before.

‘He kept saying he could ‘not go on’ because of what had happened and although I spent ages trying to get him out of these thoughts, as did his son Carl, I knew when he did not reply to my messages that he had probably died.’

In a statement read to the inquest, Mr Dymond’s cousin Gerald Brierley said that he had written Leslie’s witness statement based on Leslie’s ‘raw notes’.

He also said that he had agreed with Leslie to take care of legal issues on his behalf ‘for which he agreed to reward me with a share of any money that he might obtain from ITV’.

Mr Brierley said: ‘By ‘I agreed I would do everything’, I meant that I was to keep Leslie Dymond, ‘out of it’ (using his words), and ‘it’ I understood to be, as far as legally allowed, to instruct a solicitor in connection with the death of his brother and manage all affairs concerning any solicitor, paralegal, barrister, coroner, judge, court official, legal aid officer, press officer, member of the press, or other person.

‘I did say that he might need to sign certain documents and give direct instruction where obligatory, and that I could not potentially give evidence for him, which is common sense.’

The hearing continues. 

The Samaritans can be contacted on 116123 or email jo@samaritans.org