It’s been a bad week for the Jermey Kyle Show!

After a recent court case where a Jermey Kyle guest was sentenced for headbutting someone on the show, District Judge Alan Berg branded the ITV1 show “a form of human bear-baiting”. Then later in the week another former guest claimed that production staff plied him (an alcoholic) with lager and wound him up before he went on stage.

Reeling from the spate of accusations made against the show, UFI, the governement backed body which runs LearnDirect has pulled the plug on its £500,000 a year sponsorship deal with ITV.

A spokesperson for the government’s communications body, the Central Office of Information (COI), said: “The criticism of the show – sparked by Judge Alan Berg’s remarks earlier this week – means that both Ufi and the COI consider it no longer appropriate for Learndirect to be associated with the programme.”