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The BBC failed to investigate concerns about the presenter Ashley Cain that were raised with the broadcaster directly by an interviewee who was a victim of sexual violence.
Last week, the Guardian reported that Cain, a former footballer and reality TV star, had a history of extreme misogyny on social media.
Cain had also been accused by a woman, Rachel Roftis, in a 2015 newspaper article of filming them having sex and uploading the footage to his Snapchat without her consent, a claim he has denied.
After the Guardian’s revelations, the BBC said it had no further plans to work with Cain.
A statement blamed independent production partners for what the BBC called a “failed” vetting process, adding: “The BBC has clear requirements around vetting and social media checks, which are undertaken by the production company.” But the Guardian can now reveal that the BBC was directly told of concerns about Cain’s suitability in November 2025. In October 2025, Eve, 29, a writer from London, was approached by BBC’s One’s weekday show Morning Live. The show is produced by BBC Studios, the broadcaster’s commercial subsidiary.
Producers asked Eve, who was sexually assaulted in 2024 after a football match, if she would be willing to be interviewed for a segment about sexual violence. (Eve has chosen to go by her first name, to protect her identity as a victim of sexual violence.)
Eve agreed to the interview, but when she learned that Cain was to be the person interviewing her she expressed serious reservations in phone calls and via email to a director on Morning Live.
Eve said: “I looked through his Instagram and I was worried he perpetuated tropes of toxic masculinity. The way he was talking about being the ‘beast’ [Cain’s nickname on social media is ‘beast’] and all this macho behaviour made me feel like maybe he wasn’t the right person to understand the subject of sexual violence.”
In an email to the director, sent on 3 November 2025, Eve wrote that, after looking through his work, Cain “strikes me as someone quite old-fashioned in his approach to masculinity, which raises some alarm bells to me around understanding the nuance around breaking that toxic masculinity cycle that leads to sexist and misogynistic culture within football. Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but his brand seems focused on being a ‘beast’ with quite macho behaviour.”
She additionally raised concerns that Cain, a reality TV star, was not the right person to carry out an interview about a topic as serious as sexual violence.
Eve wrote: “the subject [of sexual violence] is really important and serious and with Ashley’s brand it feels like he isn’t the sort of individual to signal the seriousness of the subject. He strikes [me] more as a social media/reality TV star than a journalist/presenter.”
The BBC director wrote back to say that she appreciated Eve’s concerns. In a follow-up email, sent on 5 November 2025, she said she had requested a “chat” with Cain’s agent and confirmed that the senior team at Morning Live were aware of Eve’s misgivings.
She wrote: “I have also shared your email with the senior team here so everyone is aware of your reservations … so this will be something higher management will be across.”
The disclosure that BBC staff were aware of concerns about Cain’s views on masculinity and his social media presence casts serious doubt on the broadcaster’s insistence that the responsibility for any vetting failure lay with independent production partners.
It also poses a headache for the BBC’s new director-general, Matt Brittin, who has spoken about the need for the BBC to maintain the highest standards of editorial excellence.
Eve said she was later told by the director that she had spoken with Cain and he had told her that the subject of sexual violence was important to him as a father. Eve said she asked to speak to Cain directly, but that was not possible.
“My gut feeling was really off,” she said. “I remember talking to so many people and saying, ‘I don’t know if I should do it, look at this guy.’” But ultimately she decided, “he can’t be that bad, he works for the BBC”.
Eve was interviewed by Cain in an episode of Morning Live that aired on 15 December 2025. She said Cain was polite and courteous during the interview, although he did not seem particularly knowledgable about sexual assault.
After the Guardian’s reporting was published last week, Eve learned about Cain’s history of abusive and misogynistic remarks.
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“I’m astounded that [the BBC] didn’t check his socials at least, to see if he was suitable to be in the same room as a victim of sexual violence,” she said. “It would have been incredibly easy to check his tweets.”
Unknown to Eve, Cain had previously been dismissive of sexual assault. In a May 2018 tweet, sent in response to a now-deleted tweet from a woman, Cain wrote: “I think I’ve probably been groped 1000 times more than you. The only difference is it seems acceptable for a women [sic] to smack my arse but god forbid a man smack a woman’s arse lol.”
Eve said: “I find it incredibly disrespectful that they went forward with him and there was no vetting, even after I raised concerns about his Instagram.” She would not have consented to the interview if she had known about Cain’s remarks, she said.
Six months before Cain interviewed Eve, he had been replaced on a BBC documentary due to misconduct allegations. In June 2025, production staff on Sin City: The Real Las Vegas raised concerns about Cain after he appeared to be drunk during filming.
Filming was stopped before Cain was due to meet with vulnerable contributors, including sex workers and representatives of a sex trafficking organisation. A BBC commissioner is understood to have been made aware of concerns about Cain’s conduct and production was suspended at the BBC’s request. Another presenter was flown out to Las Vegas to replace him.
It is unclear whether producers on Morning Live were aware of the Las Vegas allegations.
Cain did not reply to a request for comment, but in a statement published on Instagram on Monday, he wrote that he was “not proud” of the language he used. “I don’t deny it, I don’t excuse it, and I certainly don’t condone it,” he wrote, adding that the comments were made “by a younger version of myself who still had a lot of growing up to do”.
He did not address the Las Vegas allegations, nor the allegations that he non-consensually took and shared footage of himself having sex with Rachel Roftis, although he has formerly denied the Roftis claims, saying in 2015 that she consented to having the footage taken and shared.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We are very sorry to Eve for the distress this has caused her. As we have said, we have no plans to work on future projects with Ashley Cain. Had we known at the time what we now know, he would never have been chosen for this segment.”
On Cain’s interview with Eve, they added: “It is clear he was not the appropriate person to conduct the interview and we apologise for this.”
The BBC is investigating how its vetting requirements and social media checks failed in relation to Cain.
