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that he could make or break the careers of anyone working at the channel — whether they were in front of the camera or behind it.

As many employees at the network put it: he ran the show. And his influence wasn’t confined to This Morning, the programme he hosted for 21 years, but the entire network.

‘What Phillip wanted, Phillip got,’ one former staff member says. ‘If he didn’t want someone there, then they went. If he wanted something changed, it was changed.’

So when Schofield decided that he didn’t want to run the risk of a much younger former lover ever divulging details of their affair, he hired lawyers to negotiate a non-disclosure agreement, which the individual involved voluntarily signed as part of an agreement to pay a substantial sum, and the document Given the power he wielded, Schofield was no doubt confident that, like the romance itself, the existence of this NDA, though perfectly legal, would not become public knowledge.

But when asked about its existence in recent days, Schofield’s lawyer came clean, confirming that not only had an agreement been signed but a six-figure payment had been handed over.

And now, for the first time, the Mail can reveal the horrifying impact the affair had on the life of the person concerned, who was — after all — 34 years younger than Schofield.