Jeremy Kyle Show loses sponsorship

The sponsors of The Jeremy Kyle Show have pulled the plug on the £500,000-a-year deal in the wake of the controversy over its content.

UFI, which runs learndirect, the Government's adult education service, said continued sponsorship of the show "would not protect and enhance the strength and reputation of learndirect".

The move comes after the popular ITV show was described as "a form of human bear-baiting" by a judge sentencing a guest who headbutted another.

District Judge Alan Berg said the programme was "trash" and existed to "titillate bored members of the public with nothing better to do".

Judge Berg made his comments at Manchester Magistrates' Court as he fined security guard David Staniforth £300 plus £60 costs for headbutting bus driver Larry Mahoney during a row on stage.

The security guard had been on the show to describe how the bus driver had an affair with his wife after moving into their home as a lodger.

Mr Staniforth, 45, was filmed headbutting his rival, leaving him with blood pouring from his nose. The footage was not broadcast by ITV.

Earlier, the show's producers were forced to deny an alcoholic guest's claims that he was plied with lager to make him more confrontational.

Jobless Peter Davies, an ex-heroin addict, of Cheshire, appeared on the show in February to discover why his father cut him from his will.

But a spokesman for the show - which attracts 1.5 million viewers - said: "Peter was not encouraged to drink and was not given four or five cans of lager as he claims. He was given two small cups of weak lager (half a litre in total) over a two-and-a-half-hour period to counteract alcohol withdrawal symptoms."