Fern Britton reveals she is still good friends with sacked This Morning co-host John Leslie and claims girls were 'all over him' 24 years after his career imploded over rape and drug allegations

Fern Britton says she remains firm friends with her former This Morning co-host John Leslie, some 24-years after mounting speculation about the Scottish presenter's private life led to his dismissal from the ITV show. 

Leslie, 61, was already a household name through previous mainstream jobs on Blue Peter and Wheel Of Fortune before landing a prominent hosting role on the ITV flagship alongside Britton in 1999. 

But his career went off the rails after he was erroneously named as Ulrika Jonsson’s alleged rapist, despite Jonsson never publicly revealing the identity of her attacker. 

Days later, photographs appeared in a Sunday newspaper of Leslie taking cocaine, which led to bosses at This Morning terminating his contract and elevating stand-in presenter Phillip Schofield to full-time host. 

A sex tape was subsequently leaked of Leslie and his then girlfriend, nurse Abi Titmuss, with another woman. Then, a steady stream of women came forward to accuse him of ‘improper sexual conduct’ – all of it denied.

In 2003, he was charged with two counts of indecent assault, but walked free from court after prosecutors dropped the case. 

Discussing her relationship with Leslie on the latest instalment of James O'Brien's Full Disclosure podcast, Britton, 68, recalled how women would openly flirt with the former presenter whenever he was seen in public. 

'I will say that I really like John,' she said. 'I still like John. I have never seen anything that would set my alarms off, nothing. I know that if we nipped over to the pub after a show, girls would be all over him. He's a big, tall, handsome guy, and single, there's a lot of... [attributes]. 

'He's always been acquitted of everything, and he's disappeared, having a life of his own, doing property developments I think.' 

Britton says her bond with Leslie was so strong that he often spent time with her four children and would even accompany her on the school run.  

She recalled: 'He would come home with me - we might be cooking chicken, he loved roast chicken - so he'd come home with me and all the kids were hanging around. They loved him.

'He walked the pram with [my daughter] Grace, who's now 29, down to the school to pick the boys up...  we walked into the playground and it was just people swooning all over the place. 

'So, I have a lot for time for John. He rang me up last year and we might ring every couple of years, and that's it. Lovely.' 

Leslie's position on family show This Morning became untenable when pictures emerged of him snorting cocaine in 2002. 

Allegations of sexual assault - later dismissed in court - would soon follow, and Britton says the entire production team were devastated by his sudden departure. 

'... he was sacked from the show, and everyone on the show, we were all heartbroken, I will tell you that, and really missed him,' she said. 

With Leslie gone, Phillip Schofield was elevated to a full time position alongside Britton, who says she was under pressure to form an instant connection with her new co-host.  

'Phillip had been doing one day a week, so John was doing four before all this happened,' she recalled. 

'We had to get to know each other very quickly. So we sat in my dressing room after the show, I had a bottle of whiskey in there and we drank half of it, told each other everything. We had to fix it from there, so that's how I did that.' 

Britton would eventually resign from the show in 2009, citing a desire to spend more time with her family as the primary reason for her departure. 

The presenter later revealed she had walked out over "poor treatment," notably a specific, unrevealed incident on the morning of her resignation. 

Discussing her departure on Tuesday, Britton admitted she was still reluctant to go into details regarding the context surrounding her decision to leave.  

She said: 'I have very mixed emotions because it was a very good relationship [with Schofield], on and off air, and things got difficult. 

'I was having my own stuff, all over the newspapers, gastric-band gate and all that. I was shredded for that one, but I had to keep going somehow, but I had an awful lot of attention, there was too much attention, and things did become difficult.

'And then the day I did resign, I had no idea I was going to resign. It was sort of suggested... one day I'll tell you.' 

While her relationship with Leslie remains positive, Britton says she had a difficult introduction to broadcasting after being drafted in alongside Frank Bough and Selina Scott on '80s morning show Breakfast Time.

She recalled: 'When I first met Frank I was invited to meet them all for lunch because I was the new person joining the team. Frank was on my right hand side, the editor was on my left, and we got to the part where everyone was finishing their cigarettes and stubbing them out on the pudding plate, as you could then. 

'[Frank] leant back in his chair with his fag, turned his knees to me and he went, "Well, I wonder how long it will be before I'm having an affair with you? Because I do have a very big c**k."

'That was the way it was. I'm not saying it's right, but that's how it was.'

Britton says former co-host Selina Scott also struggled to work with Bough during her time on the show.  

'It was difficult with Frank Bough,' she said.  'She [Selina] found it difficult with Frank Bough... she was getting trounced by him. 

'[One day] he was watching her on a film, and I was sitting next to him that morning. He was watching her cycling across the Highlands or something, and he said "Look at her, she even rides a bike with her knees together." 

James O'Brien's Full Disclosure podcast is available to watch now.