More bad news for the struggling Virgin Radio – Chris Evans plans to stage a media offensive when he goes to court to secure the £8.6 million of share options he reckons he is due after he was famously sacked from the station.
Evan's PR adviser Matthew Freud has written to national newspaper editors warning them that a "smear campaign" against Evans is likely to occur in the run up to his high court appearance, and urging them to triple check every story before going to press.
He wrote: "Over the past four days, Freud's have received an unusually large number of calls relating to Chris Evans. Each call has been on a different story, all "impeccably" sourced, all negative and damaging, and all entirely ficticious. This bears all the hallmarks of an old-fashioned smear campaign and I would appreciate your vigilance in making sure that any coverage that you do run on Chris is thoroughly checked for accuracy." Word is most tabloid attention has been focussed on Evan's marriage with Billie Piper, in which they're keen to find emerging holes.
Either way it remains to be seen who comes out worse. War reporting committing – it is likely to be a high profile court hearing between one of the biggest names in British radio of recent times, and the struggling radio station he bought, sold and was then fired from.