Married at First Sight rape allegations 'serious', says DCMS

Married at First Sight rape allegations 'serious', says DCMSJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleNoor Nanji,Culture correspondentandJames ChaterBBC/PAWarning: contains details of alleged sexual offences and misconductThe Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has said rape claims involving Channel 4's Married at First Sight (MAFS) UK show are "serious" and there must be consequences for "criminality or wrongdoing". A BBC Panorama investigation revealed allegations two women had been raped during filming, while a third said she had been the victim of a non-consensual sex act. Ofcom said broadcasters needed to take "due care" over the welfare of show participants. Holiday company Tui told BBC News it was stopping sponsorship of the show.Channel 4 has now removed all episodes of the programme from its streaming and linear services, alongside MAFS UK social channels.Married at First Sight UK brides tell BBC they were raped by on-screen husbandsIn a statement released shortly after BBC News broke the story on Monday, Channel 4 said it had commissioned an external review last month of welfare on the show "after being presented with serious allegations of wrongdoing".Lawyers for CPL, an independent production company which makes the UK version of the show, said its welfare system was "gold standard" and industry-leading, and that it had acted appropriately in all these cases.Later on Tuesday, Alex Mahon, who was chief executive of Channel 4 from 2017 to 2025, is due to face questions from MPs in a pre-scheduled meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.The chair of the committee, Caroline Dineage, told BBC News that MAFS UK did "involve an element of risk" as a show."It's a TV show that almost expects and anticipates people that have only just met each other will have to become really quite intimate with each other," she said."They're expected to share...