Channel 4Channel 4 actuality present Married at First Sight has rejected calls to take away one among its contributors after accusations of home abuse have been made in opposition to him.
Criticism has been geared toward Alexander Henry, who’s within the ninth collection which begins on Monday, within the feedback on E4’s Instagram promotion reel.
Channel 4 confirmed it could not be slicing Mr Henry’s scenes as “the DBS (legal report) examine carried out on the contributor raised within the allegation was returned clear”.
The Solar has reported that Mr Henry was sentenced to 34 days in a army jail for taking unauthorised depart.
The paper says Mr Henry was arrested by army police for abandoning his function within the RAF to take part on the present, regardless of his depart request being denied by his commander.
A spokesperson for Mr Henry advised The Solar: “He returned after filming of his personal volition and handed himself into the army authorities. He was sentenced to 34 days in a army jail and served 24 as a mannequin inmate.”
The BBC has contacted the RAF and Mr Henry for remark.
Married at First Sight is a daring social experiment the place single individuals marry complete strangers whom they meet for the very first time on the altar.
Mr Henry, a private coach from Birmingham, is among the groomsmen on the present.
Channel 4 has confirmed it has obtained “a single allegation in opposition to a Married at First Sight UK 2024 contributor and we’ve got responded on to those that got here to us with that allegation”.
In a press release it added that the “welfare of our contributors is of paramount significance and, as such, we take all allegations of unacceptable behaviour critically”.
It went on to say: “Everybody participating in MAFS UK undergoes a rigorous vetting course of, involving a legal report examine and a number of psychological evaluations, earlier than they are often cleared to participate.
“We solid contributors based mostly on the data we’re legally in a position to entry, and we proceed to assessment this course of to make sure checks are as thorough as legally potential.”
Channel 4The BBC has seen proof of the emails and photos which the alleged sufferer despatched to Channel 4 alongside her request for him to be faraway from the present.
In a response to that e mail, Channel 4 mentioned the programme was “filmed a number of months in the past and isn’t stay, so Alexander will function within the programmes which were edited and are due for broadcast”.
It added that “there will even be promotional exercise on the channel’s social media platforms by which Alexander my seem”.
‘Flashbacks about what occurred’
The BBC understands that Mr Henry tried to contact his former companion forward of filming the present and in a single message mentioned: “I get flashbacks about what occurred between us, the nice… however principally the unhealthy, and it makes me really feel sick.”
Final 12 months he participated in one other Channel 4 relationship actuality present, Let’s Make a Love Scene, however the episode he appeared in was by no means aired after his former companion reported his behaviour to the present’s producer.
The alleged sufferer was advised by Channel 4 that MAFS UK is “produced by a distinct manufacturing firm to the one who made the earlier present, so they’d have been unaware of Alexander’s participation in a programme that was by no means broadcast”.
Based mostly on Channel 4’s choice to maintain Mr Henry on the present, charity Girls’s Assist mentioned in a press release that it was “extremely disillusioned and anxious to listen to that the producers have taken the choice to not take away an alleged abuser”.
It added: “Having seen the direct impression of abusive behaviours displayed on the present in earlier years on survivors, we’d have hoped that safety and tolerance ranges for abuse would go away no room for perpetrators to be given a platform once more, with their actions being televised as ‘leisure’.”
