'Homeless' ITN newsreader is a drunk who keeps his designer clothes in my garage, says his mother

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Rough-sleeping former newsreader Ed Mitchell's world was unravelling today after he was arrested on suspicion of assault and his mother revealed much of his hard-luck story was untrue.

The 54-year-old former colleague of Carol Barnes was held in cells for 13 hours after an alleged attack on a woman in Brighton.

He had been staying at a four-star hotel on the seafront after selling his story to a Sunday newspaper of how he fell from his £100,000-a-year job presenting the news to bankruptcy and sleeping rough in Hove for nine months.

But today his mother revealed that her son, whose riches to rags story has been covered around the world, had lived with her for the summer until she tired of his drinking and asked him to leave.

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Welcome to my home: Ed Mitchell resting on the seafront bench

She also said that Mitchell kept designer clothes in her garage at nearby Lancing and returns regularly to wash and do his laundry.

According to reports today her garage was packed with bin-liners containing designer shirts, cashmere jumpers and expensive coats.

One neighbour, who had helped to move the items out of Mrs Mitchell's house, said that she had counted 20 Savile Row suits among the collection-Mitchell lists his mother's house as his contact address on his bankruptcy papers.

He told journalists that he had been sleeping rough since February, but Mrs Mitchell, 82, said that he had stayed with her for three months until she asked him to leave in September.

Mitchell has maintained that his decline was a result of the fickleness of credit card companies, and that he was desperate for any kind of job, however menial.

But Mrs Mitchell, a former Wren, said that her son's alcoholism was the reason for his decline and that his lack of effort in trying to get back on his feet had driven her to despair.

She said: "I didn't want him to stay.

He never did anything about looking for a job and he never lifted a finger in the house or garden. He just went out and came back drunk. I told him he wasn't doing anything. The pension only stretches so far. I've helped him every way I can."

She added that his former wife, Judith, was "livid" with Mitchell for the embarrassment he had caused to her and their children, Freddie, 22, and Alexandra, 25.

A Sussex police spokesman said: "A 54-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of common assault at the Thistle Hotel, Brighton, in the early hours of Sunday morning."

He was released without charge and police said they would take no further action.

Mitchell's former colleagues and friends included John Humphrys, Carol Barnes, Alastair Stewart and Dermot Murnaghan, and Mitchell himself presented the Ten O'Clock News.

High-profile: Mitchell in 1988

He earned a six-figure salary and during his career interviewed Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Blaming his demise on credit card spending, at one point, he earlier claimed, his debt had spiralled to £250,000.

The former ITN man had said: "If it could happen to me, then it could happen to anyone.

"There are lots of us out here. Officially there are 25 homeless people in Brighton and Hove but there are scores more living rough, believe me.

"I am on first-name terms with many of them and lots of them are just like me.

"I've met former solicitors, estate agents, people who ran their own businesses and who have now fallen on hard times. I've even met a former millionaire who lost all his money.

"I suppose you could call this the age of the white-collar tramp.

"Certainly that has been my experience. It's quite frightening."

Mitchell, a 54-year-old father of two, is clean-shaven and rather smartly dressed for a down-and-out (the result, he explains, of finding a "decent public toilet" with washing facilities near where he now sleeps in jeans, leather jacket and a pair of "designer shoes"."The label is George - from Asda," he jokes).

His catastrophic fall began in 2001, when he was made redundant by U.S. TV network CNBC.

Until then, he and his family "wanted for nothing".

He lived with wife Judy and their two children, Freddy and Alexandra, now in their 20s, in a £500,000 house in Hove.

"We had a very nice life," he said.

"Two holidays a year, dinner parties. I travelled all over the world. My kids have turned out very nicely, so I must have done something right."

He admits drink played a part in his downfall but said was the ease with which he was able to obtain credit to make ends meet after he lost his job that eventually cost him everything.

"It's so easy to spend more than you actually have and very soon things are out of control," he said.

"It wouldn't have made any difference to my financial situation if I had been teetotal.

"When you start spending on credit cards to pay off debt, it becomes a Catch-22 situation.

"I ended up with 25 cards, and was using them to pay off each other. I had no trouble getting credit at all.

"In fact, the damn things would turn up uninvited on my doormat."

There was £16,000 owed on his egg card, £33,000 to the Halifax and £30,000 to Barclays.

"I received a letter from one company demanding a minimum payment of £2,000," he said.

"Where was I going to get all that money?"

Inevitably, the pressure created tension with his wife.

How could it not? Two years ago, his 25-year marriage ended in divorce.

"Our split was amicable," he said.

"We didn't get involved in solicitors and just used a mediator.

"Our marriage just couldn't survive the financial pressures.

"When we split up, all the debts were in my name and my only concern was that my ex-wife should be comfortable and secure."

Eventually, they had to sell their home.

His wife moved into a flat with their son (by then his daughter had already left home) and he spent his first night on the street in a walled garden nearby.

"It was a terrifying experience," he said.

"One day I had a house, a bed, soft sheets, everything in fact, and the next, I was alone in the gutter."

Over the next year, he got by sleeping on friends' sofas but did not wish to impose for too long.

For the past nine months he has been living rough.

At least, having been made bankrupt, he is no longer labouring with huge debts.

"Sleeping rough is pretty stressful," he said.

"I've never been Mr Tough Guy. No one will ever starve in Brighton but someone could easily die from hypothermia. It gets very cold at night but you do get hardened to it."

Indeed, his new "home" is a park bench just yards from his old house.

Tonight, like every night, he will settle down at 8pm in his sleeping bag with an Ian Rankin book.

At 8.30pm, volunteers will bring him sandwiches and coffee, then he will try to sleep.

"I usually get about three hours," he says.

His days are spent looking for work or visiting the library.

"I've applied for everything, even cleaning the streets, but when people see my CV, they think I'm some kind of undercover reporter, trying to expose them for corruption or something, when all I want is a job.

"I may look like an emaciated, frozen figure on the bench sometimes, but to me this is a challenge, and if my story can help people also stuck in a financial hole, then I hope it will.

"Many people are on the verge of suicide over credit card debt and if my story serves as a warning to them, that must be a good thing."

Mitchell has no contact with his ex-wife.

But he says he meets his children about once a month for a drink.

His son is a web designer and his daughter runs a farm at a nearby public school.

Neither are in a position to help him financially, he says, and to begin with he did not tell them about his homelessness.

"I didn't advertise the fact because I didn't want them to be embarrassed," he says.

"But they are great kids and very supportive now they know.

"They love their dad.

"They think he's very good and will somehow manage to dig himself out of this hole. I'm planning to see them both on Boxing Day."

This morning, Mitchell was being interviewed on the BBC Today programme by John Humphrys, a former colleague from the 1980s.

"I remember John gave me one very good piece of advice - never become a television presenter.

"So when I speak to him, he'll either have a very good laugh at my expense or take me to task but I'm not embarrassed about what's happened to me because it could happen to anyone."

Another old colleague is Dermot Murnaghan.

The two used to present C4 Daily.

"Dermot once said of me: 'Ed Mitchell taught me everything I knew about broadcasting', and I can't deny that sometimes I've looked at him on television and wished it was still me instead of him but I don't envy him all those early mornings.

"But I'm not racked with regret at what has happened. I made a few wrong decisions but I don't think of myself as a failure.

"This is just another chapter in my life, a new challenge. This time the challenge is survival, rather than the advancement of my career.

"The challenge is waking up alive each morning.

"There's still the view that homeless people are dossers.

"That's not the way it is any more.

"While credit cards and banks are pushing the idea of borrowing money, the 21st-century tramp in my experience is often a former white- collar worker and there's going to be lots more like me who struggle with their debts.

2I'm speaking for the tens of thousands of people who are going to go through what I've been through.

"You may think: how does a highflying presenter find himself on a park bench? But believe me, it's not far away from anyone."

 

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