BBC says Gregg Wallace isn’t entitled to damages, as it denies causing ‘distress and harassment’

The BBC has said Gregg Wallace is not “entitled to any damages” in response to a High Court claim filed by the presenter – in which he says the broadcaster caused him “distress and harassment”.

The former MasterChef presenter is suing the broadcaster and its subsidiary BBC Studios Distribution Limited after he was sacked from the cooking show in July.

Wallace was dismissed after an investigation into historical allegations of misconduct upheld multiple accusations against him.

He has filed a legal claim for up to £10,000 in damages, alleging the BBC failed to comply with a request for copies of his personal data, which caused “distress and harassment”.

In its defence filed at the High Court, Jason Pobjoy KC, for the BBC, said: “It is denied that the claimant has suffered any distress or harassment as a result of the responses of the BBC.

“It is denied that the claimant is entitled to any damages, interest or other relief, whether as pleaded or otherwise.”

The broadcaster further denied that Wallace “has suffered any distress or harassment” as a result of its responses.

The court documents also claim that the presenter failed to give the BBC prior notice of his intention to issue legal proceedings.

The broadcaster has admitted Wallace wrote to it on 6 March this year, asking for copies of his personal data.

Mr Pobjoy said the BBC did not provide Wallace with a “substantive response” within three months of his request “primarily due to the lack of proportionality and scale”.

He said that after designating the request as complex, the BBC responded to Wallace on 7 October and provided him with a copy of his personal data.

The barrister said the “voluntary disclosure demonstrates that the claimant has no basis to claim damages for distress, or otherwise, in respect of the withholding of such information”.

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Court documents filed on behalf of Wallace last month said the BBC emailed the presenter on 7 August to apologise for the delay in sending his personal data.

Barrister Lawrence Power said the broadcaster told Wallace it was “taking all reasonable steps” to process the request in “as timely a manner as possible going forward”, but that he had still not received a response when the court documents were filed.

He said that by “failing to fully comply with the subject access requests” made by Wallace, “the defendants acted in breach of their statutory duty and, in doing so, caused distress and harassment to the claimant”.

Wallace began co-presenting MasterChef in 2005, but it was announced in November 2024 that he would step away from his role while the misconduct allegations were investigated.

A review by law firm Lewis Silkin later upheld 45 of the 83 allegations against him, including one of “unwelcome physical contact”.

Wallace issued an apology, saying he was “deeply sorry for any distress caused” and that he “never set out to harm or humiliate”.