David Walliams was an icon to children. This is a grim betrayal

Résumé détaillé

Walliams was the unlikely face of "family friendly" entertainment for two decades. The grooming allegations mark his downfall ...

Little Britain was irresistible to children from the moment it arrived on our television screens in 2003 with Vicky Pollard in court “Yeah but no but”-ing her way through a shoplifting charge.

It might have started out as a taboo-busting sketch show on Radio 4, skewering the prejudices of Middle England, but on screen, its grotesque costumes, high camp and unsophisticated, cartoon catchphrases were catnip to a generation of pre-adolescents too immature to grasp satire, who deafened their playgrounds and classrooms with squawks of “I’m a lady” or “Computer says no” and missed the joke completely.

David Walliams and Matt Lucas immediately became British comedy’s most ubiquitous double act, their popularity bolstered by their unusual – and rather unlikely, given how unsavoury their material could be – ability to appeal to both adult and younger audiences.

That unexpected popularity set the course for Walliams’ career. At the very start, his act was strange, occasionally extreme and frequently hypersexualised, yet rather than confining him to the fringe it fast-tracked him to the upper echelons of the mainstream entertainment industry, whose most lucrative market is “family”. That is the realm over which he came to preside.

His children’s books, with their Quentin Blake and Tony Ross illustrations, had him hailed as the successor to Roald Dahl, and were turned into all-star Christmas adaptations by BBC One. They were divisive but bestselling, and made his publisher HarperCollins £156m, until he was dropped amid misconduct allegations last year. His decade-long gig hosting Britain’s Got Talent beamed him into homes on Saturday nights for a decade, until he was sacked after being recorded using explicit, derogatory language about contestants in 2022.

He always carried a sinister air – a dark mean streak, and was not cuddly or cosy – but for 25 years he was omnipresent across the BBC and ITV and in the bedrooms of curious, imaginative children.

It has now been alleged that he…

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