Online group calls for Kay Burley to be sacked

Online group calls for Kay Burley to be sacked (Image credit: PA Wire/PA Photos)

A Facebook group has seen over 3,900 people call for Sky News presenter Kay Burley to be sacked for pushing Peter Andre to tears during an interview on Tuesday. The anchor had probed Katie Price's ex-husband on how he felt about the glamour girl's wedding on Monday to Celebrity Big Brother winner Alex Reid and the future custody of his children with Jordan. Peter's agent Claire Powell later phoned Kay to complain about the way she treated the reality TV star. A source told The Mirror: "Claire felt it was a blatant hatchet job. She kept saying, 'How can you do that? Peter's a great dad'." Kay wrote on her Sky News blog to apologise to Peter and claimed: "When I went to check during an ad break that he was OK, he sobbed on my shoulder in the green room. "As we chatted he said he was relieved he'd finally vented some of the pent-up tension he'd been feeling." Viewers have reportedly contacted Sky and Ofcom about the interview, the regulator will look at the complaints before they decide if they need to investigate the incident. Sky News told The Mirror: "Kay later spoke with Peter off-camera and they parted amicably."

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.