Why Scott Mills’ accuser got here ahead, the fall-out for his superstar mates, ‘hassle’ round booze and the anger, wailing and devastation inside Radio 2. Insiders inform all to KATIE HIND

Looking at their wide smiles as they pose for the wedding photographer, one thing is instantly clear: these aren’t just work colleagues. These are friends – and dear ones at that.

On one side is a beaming Rylan Clark. And beside him is the happy groom on his wedding day, his treasured pal and fellow BBC DJ, Scott Mills.

The picture was taken shortly after Mills and his husband Sam Vaughan said their vows at a luxurious villa in Barcelona, barely 18 months ago.

‘Best wedding ever,’ Clark wrote later when posting the image online. ‘Love u both.’

Radio 2 DJ Clark certainly wasn’t the only recognisable face present for Mills’ big day. Radio 1 DJs Vick Hope and her husband, Calvin Harris, were also there, along with Zoe Ball – whose Breakfast Show Mills took over just months later.

These stars had strong bonds, cemented over years of them working their way up the ladder at the BBC – through boozy awards ceremonies, charity events, gruelling early shifts and many good times.

The question now, though, is whether those bonds will survive the current bad times: specifically, the events of the past fortnight, when Mills, 53, was dramatically sacked from his prestige role as Radio 2’s Breakfast Show host, after 27 years of working for the BBC.

He was fired nine days ago after bosses were made aware that the alleged victim of a serious sexual offences probe against Mills in 2017 was under 16. It was confirmed last week that the accusations related to a male who was aged between 13 and 16 at the time of the alleged offences, which are said to have run from 1997 into the 2000s, when Mills was in his 20s.

The investigation was closed in 2019 after prosecutors decided there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.

To say Mills’ famous friends are poleaxed by the scandal is an understatement. No one saw anything like this coming.

Indeed, Mills was described to me so many times last week as ‘the loveliest man you could possibly meet’.

Even his most intimate friends were said to be in the dark about the police investigation, with Mills failing to reveal any hint of trouble.

‘Scott didn’t tell some of his closest mates about any of this,’ says my source inside Radio 2. ‘It is the last thing that they expected.

‘Now it’s a case of Scott’s friends not knowing how to handle it. Do they cast him adrift? Do they stand by him? There is so much confusion. The least they deserve is an explanation – but is it really that simple? Probably not.

‘So do we turn our backs on him? It’s a hard one, there’s been a lot of soul searching. Many of Scott’s friends are not in a good place.’

Among them is said to be Sara Cox. Just six months ago she completed her heroic 135-mile marathon challenge for Children In Need.

Along with her family, there was only ever going to be one person to meet her at the finishing line: Mills.

Her long-standing friend and colleague was even given the honour of announcing on air the staggering final total that had been raised: more than £10million. It’s frankly impossible to imagine him being given that task today.

I’m told Clark has been left ‘devastated’ by these revelations. He and Mills worked together on Eurovision and often paired up for BBC radio programmes.

‘Rylan and Scott are so close,’ says a friend of the pair.

‘They have done a lot of work together, but see a lot of each other socially, too. They always had each other’s backs. This will be rough for Rylan.’

Another celebrity at a loss is Zoe Ball, whose connection to Mills dates back decades after she took him under her wing when he first joined Radio 1 in the Nineties.

Writing about their friendship in his autobiography, Mills says: ‘She left me a message inviting me out with her and some of the other Radio 1 people that [first] night. Zoe really went out of her way to make me feel comfortable, even though she didn’t know me. I’ll always be grateful for that.

‘I used to go and hang out in the studio while she was doing the Breakfast Show, just to watch how she worked. She helped me to get to know other people and made my early days so much easier.’

Today my source tells me: ‘Zoe has been Scott’s biggest supporter. She’s a loyal friend of his. And he was always seen as one of the good guys. Goodness only knows what she is making of all of this.

‘But what if it is the case that he has done some very bad things? Where does that leave everything?’

Another friend said to be ‘shell-shocked’ is Greg James, who took over Mills’ Radio 1 show.

As for the man himself, it’s not known how much contact Mills’ friends have had with him recently. I’m told he has spent ‘a great deal of time with lawyers’ as he decides what to do about his future – and not just any lawyers. He’s hired the aggressive London-based legal firm Level, known for being ruthless when representing celebrity clients. There’s even talk that he could sue the BBC for unfair dismissal.

All this started on Tuesday, March 24. He signed off his last show by telling listeners ‘see you tomorrow’, but Radio 2 bosses decided that shouldn’t happen after a complaint had been made.

Mills’ accuser, I’m told, resolved to contact the BBC after watching the recent Channel 5 drama about the downfall of newsreader Huw Edwards, whose career ended after he was convicted of making indecent images of children. Whether this really is the trigger for the complaint or just coincidental timing is hard to tell, such are the febrile rumours circulating around W1A.

Three days later, on the Friday, Mills was sacked on the insistence of the BBC’s outgoing Director General Tim Davie.

The corporation later admitted knowing about the 2017 police investigation, but said Mills’ firing was due to ‘new information’ coming to light, which is believed to be the young age of the complainant at the time.

By last Monday, the news was out following the BBC’s director of music Lorna Clarke’s email to staff, explaining that Mills was no longer contracted to the BBC.

In his autobiography – Love You Bye: My Story, published in 2012 – Mills documents his dream of making it on radio. Aged eight, he’d perform as a DJ in his bedroom with two cassette machines to his rapt audience of one – his mum Sandra. He later got a break on hospital radio when he was just 12.

In 2000, two years after joining the BBC, Mills’ world fell apart when his boyfriend Mitch died of a drug overdose. On the night of the tragedy, Mills told how he had been partying at the BRIT Awards – only to have a police officer later turn up at his hotel to deliver the shocking news.

Somehow, he managed to present his Radio 1 show the next day but, as he described in his book, ‘after the show I went home, sat on the sofa and sobbed for hours’.

Mills’ drinking later became problematic, something he says he ‘wasn’t proud of’.

Indeed, three years after his partner died, Mills was almost sacked by the BBC for arriving late to present his morning show, and audibly slurring his words on air. The night before had been the BRIT Awards and the temptations of an after-party took over.

No doubt the anniversary of Mitch’s death played a role in his drinking, too.

‘He’s the one who always loses his phone when he’s drunk,’ says one associate of his. ‘Scott is loved but always seemed a bit troubled.’

And the aftermath of his defenestration from the BBC looks like being equally difficult – both for Mills and the corporation. One presenter even told me that they fear a backlash from Radio 2 listeners, given Mills’ popularity.

‘People are walking around Radio 2 with tears streaming down their faces,’ says my source.

‘The feeling is that, rightly or wrongly, this was Tim Davie being performative. Did he have to sack Scott? Could he just have suspended him?’

‘There is a problem,’ they tell me. ‘Our great DJs are either dying like Steve Wright, or getting sacked like Scott. There’s not a lot you can do about the former, but the latter is starting to make people really angry.’

There is also the issue of the corporation’s duty of care to their former loyal staff member. Insiders tell me there is a ‘great deal of worry’ for Mills.

‘This has come as a huge shock for him. Absolutely his life is in turmoil,’ says one close to him. ‘And we know he has a tendency to drink when times are hard.

‘We just hope he gets through this. Whatever did or didn’t happen, he needs to hold it together.

‘We just hope he doesn’t turn to the bottle again.’