Sorry, have I missed the proof that ITV really didn't know Katie's real age?
It's possible that ITV decided to backtrack because everyone found out about Katie's real age. Do people really think that ITV would admit that maybe they lied?
All the reports coming out about her sacking she say lied to them.
If ITV knew her real age then Katie will have a case for unfair dismissal. So I would say ITV are telling the truth. The issue at their end is why didn't they check her out fully before hiring her. This could have been a stalker or anything who could have put cast safety at risk. She has proven how easy it was to deceive them. Full background checks would be run in such a situation one would assume.
Indeed, on this forum we have caught her out and she was sacked as a result. She said she was 19 when she auditioned so I guess that's fraud.
Don't feel that good about it though
I don't think it's fraud. It would be fraud if she had supplied legal documents with a fake age or had provided some sort of proof of age. It's much more likely that they didn't check her background properly which makes it a combination of naivete on her part and incompetence on Corrie's part, but nothing illegal.
But of course it's lucky that this has been found out so soon as it probably would have become fraud at some point if she wanted to sustain this lie throughout her career. If she'd got a P45 off Corrie or got tax credits due to her age then it would have become serious.
When I've done temp work, I was asked to provide my passport, even when I was working for my aunt.
Yes, any employer will need it, even for casual work. Unless they're paying cash in hand and not declaring it but that is of course illegal.
The point here though is that the agent is the 3rd party internneditory that actually pays the actor and DWP income tax, NI and will complete P11ds after havig invoiced Granada for the work.
So, Granada wouldn't ever have legally needed to see her identification documents - the Agent does that.
Yes, any employer will need it, even for casual work. Unless they're paying cash in hand and not declaring it but that is of course illegal.
The point here though is that the agent is the 3rd party internneditory that actually pays the actor and DWP income tax, NI and will complete P11ds after havig invoiced Granada for the work.
So, Granada wouldn't ever have legally needed to see her identification documents - the Agent does that.
But if the agent decided to declare her as a 19 year old to HMRC - which depending on what Corrie see in terms of invoices, he may have needed to - then it would have got very serious indeed and could have led to prosecution. It's just insanity that the agent or Katie decided to attempt this.
I don' usually comment on much but felt the need here.
Very silly to lie about your age. I mean at 25 you should no better, in this day and age with the internet and people find out. It would only take friends of friends people you know to say as soon as she is on screen how old she is, it's a lie that couldn't be kept forever.
Having said that, agents place huge pressures on young people, they make a lot of money if actors are cast through them and hold more power than you'd think, any recent graduates would tell you that. She should have remained strong and true to herself, told her age and auditioned anyway, but I can't imagine how she would decide to just do this alone and no one else is involved in the decision.
I find it almost impossible to imagine however, Coronation Street/ITV, do not do background checks before any contracts are signed announcements are made. In acting auditions I am sure they are allowed to ask your age, yes you can have a playing range and they should go in that, but I do believe they can ask in castings . Even if they don't It's still a buisness, you can't just employ anyone without any form of identification from a passport/birth certificate for checks on criminal records, eligible to work in the country, national insurance no ect? Agents take care of tax and money, but ITV must have a HR department where legal checks take place? How do they not know they are not mass murderers, auditioning with a fake name?
I have auditioned for theatre, cruise ships, Holiday camps even, it's a must to know who a person is and this is someone who was going to be in the public eye?
I don't believe they did not know, or did not ask for identification and check it.
Plus the girl auditioned and was deemed good enough for the part. They get so many actors going through the door, I presume all in different age ranges for the character sent by there agents. They audition and screen test a good few times before a decision. A friend of mine auditioned 6 times once for a role and got to the last two or three. The casting lasted about 6months. They go through so much before a casting decision in those audition. They went through all that and deemed her the best and now decide she can't play the part from her auditions and fire her. I can't help feel sorry for her as a performer or got bad advice.
I just don't know how such a big company and job as corrie would be for a person's first big break could not check, and let it get this far? I think she did a silly think, but the company looks incompetent and so unprofessional.
I didn't want her to lose her job either but as one of the people who helped pull evidence together I certainly don't feel responsible, not even partly. I didn't make her or ITV lie, just like everyone else in the thread I just helped uncover a truth.
I do feel however it was her fibbing more than ITV - if ITV had told her to lie (which I don't think they would have due to the fact her school friends would have been in the tabloids as soon as she made her screen debut) they would have told her to change all her online profiles etc (and they probably would have done a better job of it given the cached versions which were available) BEFORE the 'reveal'.
As far as I'm concerned she was offered the role and forgot (or thought she had more time before the reveal) to change her many online presences and did it pretty sharpish, which was still too late.
ITV are annoyed with the casting agency and aren't using them again, but some blame must fall on Katie - she's the one with the logins to her Twitter, Facebook etc so she alone would have been responsible for changing them. So she at least was complicit.
ITV are guilty of trusting the casting agencies a bit too much - a passport check might be introduced at audition or pre-offer stage now, I think!
I didn't want her to lose her job either but as one of the people who helped pull evidence together I certainly don't feel responsible, not even partly. I didn't make her or ITV lie, just like everyone else in the thread I just helped uncover a truth.
What a farce this has become. From reading the DS article I put the vast majority of the blame on the agent. Hopefully Katie Redford has got shot of her and learned a valuable lesson from it.
Even without DS there is no way her age would have stayed a secret forever. Someone would have blabbed sooner or later.
Can only imagine that DS is further hated (if that's possible) over at Corrie.
All the reports coming out about her sacking she say lied to them.
If ITV knew her real age then Katie will have a case for unfair dismissal. So I would say ITV are telling the truth. The issue at their end is why didn't they check her out fully before hiring her. This could have been a stalker or anything who could have put cast safety at risk. She has proven how easy it was to deceive them. Full background checks would be run in such a situation one would assume.
Not unless she's worked for ITV for min 2 years she won't.
What a farce this has become. From reading the DS article I put the vast majority of the blame on the agent. Hopefully Katie Redford has got shot of her and learned a valuable lesson from it.
Even without DS there is no way her age would have stayed a secret forever. Someone would have blabbed sooner or later.
Can only imagine that DS is further hated (if that's possible) over at Corrie.
What a farce this has become. From reading the DS article I put the vast majority of the blame on the agent. Hopefully Katie Redford has got shot of her and learned a valuable lesson from it.
Even without DS there is no way her age would have stayed a secret forever. Someone would have blabbed sooner or later.
Can only imagine that DS is further hated (if that's possible) over at Corrie.
DS have actually saved Corrie a lot of hassle. This would have been a lot worse for them if the character was already on screens. And once they started paying her and she declared tax etc it would have become a legal matter. The people who uncovered this have actually done Corrie a real favour. The controversy can't be nice for them but it was always going to come out and the sooner the better - they've got out of this before it had the potential to become a major story.
DS have actually saved Corrie a lot of hassle. This would have been a lot worse for them if the character was already on screens. And once they started paying her and she declared tax etc it would have become a legal matter. The people who uncovered this have actually done Corrie a real favour. The controversy can't be nice for them but it was always going to come out and the sooner the better - they've got out of this before it had the potential to become a major story.
I agree, I think Corrie owe those who brought the issue to light a bit of a thank you. (getting shot of Blackburn would be a nice way of doing so ) but it won't stop the likes of Kym Marsh, Anthony Cotton, and Catherine Tyldsley from having a go at the forums for supposedly ruining a young girls career.
I agree, I think Corrie owe those who brought the issue to light a bit of a thank you. (getting shot of Blackburn would be a nice way of doing so ) but it won't stop the likes of Kym Marsh, Anthony Cotton, and Catherine Tyldsley from having a go at the forums for supposedly ruining a young girls career.
Especially as I suspect Antony Cotton's contract renewals are based on much dodgier dealings than this.
Some DS forum members have such a sense of entitlement that we must be told everything. Where, in law, does it say viewers must be told how old an actress is?
Well, it doesn't, but when you have articles claiming the girl is 19 and evidence in a public domain proving that she isn't 19 then it's bound to arouse suspicion.
If the girl lied about her age then it's her own fault, and also the fault of ITV/Corrie for displaying an overwhelming incompetence in failing to perform any basic background check.
I feel bad for the girl as it was her first big break and I'm not going to put all blame on her, but at the end of the day if she's going to tell lies then she should be prepared to accept the consequences if she gets found out.
I did defend her the other day when in true DS style she was "hated" before she even started the job. However she has lied her way into a job and has now had her contract terminated, this would happen in any job and ITV were correct not to allow her to start.
It is a pity ITV didn't do their research before employing her!
It's a strange situation as, obviously, an actor doesn't have to be the same age as the character they play. And you'll get endless jokes about female celebs/actors in particular (hello Sinitta) lying about their age as they try to hang onto their youth.
I guess it's just unusual that an actor (or their agent) feels the need to lie at this young age. If Katie's good enough to be cast, why wasn't she put forward for characters in their late teens and early 20s? Turns out now that it was the agent who encouraged her to knock a few years off, so that's the person who is responsible. When you're starting out, I imagine the advice of the agent is taken VERY seriously and this was a serious error of judgement.
I also wonder whether ITV would have sacked her if they hadn't been reading comments about her looking too old to play a 14 year old.
Why is DS being blamed exactly? The girl lied about her age to get a job. And not just any job, but a role on a top soap, ITV 's biggest show, known and watched by millions, did she really think she would have gotten away with it?
I wonder if she lied because she thought she wouldn't have had a chance if she'd told the truth, never believing she'd really get the part so it wouldn't matter, then when she did, panicked and tried to clear all of her online info fast, but not fast enough to avoid being found out?
Lot of incredibly naive people in this thread saying that ITV (ie Granada) will have checked passport etc before hiring an actor. I've worked in TV for twenty years (nothing exciting) and hired hundreds of actors. The only time I (or anyone at the companies I worked for) has ever asked for or seen an actor's ID is when hiring under 16s - which is a complete faff, incidentally, as even if you're only hiring a kid to do 20 minutes of voiceover work, you need a letter from their doctor saying they're fit to work, a letter from their school giving permission (even if the work is outside school hours), a licenced chaperone (£100), loads of forms with their D.O.B. and stuff on, etc.
When hiring over 16s, the process is: Contact agent and ask for specific people to audition and/or give details of the roles we're after and agent sends people they think are 'appropriate'. They will often send far more people than you want them to, as it makes them (agent) look good to their clients that they're getting them lots of auditions. You choose someone. You haggle with the agent over fees/salary. Come to agreement with agent. Send contract to agent. Agent gets actor to sign contract. Actor does the work. Payments for the work are sent to the agent. That's it. We've never had to deal with tax, NI as generally ALL agents are Schedule D (the nature of acting work - mostly short term, long gaps, lots of travel and expenses, etc - makes being PAYE impractical) and our contract is with the agent rather than the actor. Anything related to the actor's ID, right to work, book-keeping etc, is the job of the acting agency not the television production company (our contracts with the agents specifically state they deal with anything like this that might be needed, that's one of the things they do to justify their percentage).
I'm only speculating, but I'd suggest what happened here is... Granada need to cast someone to play 14 year old female. They advertise in The Stage/online/wherever and/or contact agencies direct with a brief for the role. They will likely say the age of actor they are looking for. Employing under 16s is a nightmare - I mentioned the paperwork etc above, there are daily timesheets and inspections from local education authority, having to hire on-set tutors, the youngsters can only work something like three hours a day, have to have a 15 minute break every hour, etc. So with 14 being so close in age to 16 and soaps having very intense production schedules, Granada understandably favour someone over 16. I'd expect their brief to have been something like "16-20 year old actor to play 14 year old female etc etc". Agencies want to send as many people as possible to auditions as I mentioned. Joe Bloggs at Wotnot Agents has an actor (PS the word actress is rarely used within TV circles, Equity 'banned' it as sexist in the 1980s) who is older than 20 but 'plays young'. He briefs her about the audition, she is very keen obviously - soaps offer regular (and high profile) work in an industry where that's damn rare. There's tacit acknowledgement that for the purposes of this audition said actor is "19 years old".
Generally speaking there's not much risk in doing this. The chances of actually being cast are very remote (100 auditions = 1 job or thereabouts) especially as the age gap means she's unlikely to come across as convincingly as that character as others auditioning. The actor is mainly there so (a) the agent looks good for getting her the audition, and (b) she can tell her mates she auditioned for Corrie. But sacre blue! Turns out this 14 year old character is supposed to be old beyond her years, and this 19 year old actor has such maturity! Beyond that of a 19 year old, let alone a 14 year old. She's perfect! Give her the part!
And... well, you know what happens next. As I say, I'm speculating, but for both the reason she auditioned as being a younger age than she actually is (and let's be honest, female actors tend to shed years off their age, just not normally 6 of them when they're only 25) and why Granada never saw any ID etc... for both issues, the answer lies with the agents. The truth would have come out sooner or later anyway. No point blaming people on here for 'outing' her. Blame Mr Bloggs at Wotnot Agency.
It's a strange situation as, obviously, an actor doesn't have to be the same age as the character they play. And you'll get endless jokes about female celebs/actors in particular (hello Sinitta) lying about their age as they try to hang onto their youth.
I guess it's just unusual that an actor (or their agent) feels the need to lie at this young age. If Katie's good enough to be cast, why wasn't she put forward for characters in their late teens and early 20s? Turns out now that it was the agent who encouraged her to knock a few years off, so that's the person who is responsible. When you're starting out, I imagine the advice of the agent is taken VERY seriously and this was a serious error of judgement.
I also wonder whether ITV would have sacked her if they hadn't been reading comments about her looking too old to play a 14 year old.
The thing about lying about your age is that it depends where you take the years off and how they fall in a lifetime.
For Sinitta, she's probably about 50 and she claims to be 40 something I think? That's not something you can visibly notice really.
Likewise, an 80 year old who claims to be 74 is not going to be questioned about it - who could tell?
But imagine if you're 16 and you're claiming to be 10. That would just be ridiculous.
And so we come to Katie, and claiming you're 19 when you're 25, as someone who is 25 myself, is almost as crazy IMO. There's a world of difference between those two ages in terms of maturity, lifestyle and experience. She wouldn't have been believed for very long.
She's silly for agreeing to it, but I feel so sorry for the girl. The agent will rightfully never work with ITV Productions again, but how many other artists will be affected by this and have to find new agencies? What a sad mess.
Comments
Indeed, on this forum we have caught her out and she was sacked as a result. She said she was 19 when she auditioned so I guess that's fraud.
Don't feel that good about it though.
The Daily Mirror have a updated story up with more of the evidence gathered in this thread. They really are bottom feeders
All the reports coming out about her sacking she say lied to them.
If ITV knew her real age then Katie will have a case for unfair dismissal. So I would say ITV are telling the truth. The issue at their end is why didn't they check her out fully before hiring her. This could have been a stalker or anything who could have put cast safety at risk. She has proven how easy it was to deceive them. Full background checks would be run in such a situation one would assume.
I don't think it's fraud. It would be fraud if she had supplied legal documents with a fake age or had provided some sort of proof of age. It's much more likely that they didn't check her background properly which makes it a combination of naivete on her part and incompetence on Corrie's part, but nothing illegal.
But of course it's lucky that this has been found out so soon as it probably would have become fraud at some point if she wanted to sustain this lie throughout her career. If she'd got a P45 off Corrie or got tax credits due to her age then it would have become serious.
Yes, any employer will need it, even for casual work. Unless they're paying cash in hand and not declaring it but that is of course illegal.
The point here though is that the agent is the 3rd party internneditory that actually pays the actor and DWP income tax, NI and will complete P11ds after havig invoiced Granada for the work.
So, Granada wouldn't ever have legally needed to see her identification documents - the Agent does that.
But if the agent decided to declare her as a 19 year old to HMRC - which depending on what Corrie see in terms of invoices, he may have needed to - then it would have got very serious indeed and could have led to prosecution. It's just insanity that the agent or Katie decided to attempt this.
Very silly to lie about your age. I mean at 25 you should no better, in this day and age with the internet and people find out. It would only take friends of friends people you know to say as soon as she is on screen how old she is, it's a lie that couldn't be kept forever.
Having said that, agents place huge pressures on young people, they make a lot of money if actors are cast through them and hold more power than you'd think, any recent graduates would tell you that. She should have remained strong and true to herself, told her age and auditioned anyway, but I can't imagine how she would decide to just do this alone and no one else is involved in the decision.
I find it almost impossible to imagine however, Coronation Street/ITV, do not do background checks before any contracts are signed announcements are made. In acting auditions I am sure they are allowed to ask your age, yes you can have a playing range and they should go in that, but I do believe they can ask in castings . Even if they don't It's still a buisness, you can't just employ anyone without any form of identification from a passport/birth certificate for checks on criminal records, eligible to work in the country, national insurance no ect? Agents take care of tax and money, but ITV must have a HR department where legal checks take place? How do they not know they are not mass murderers, auditioning with a fake name?
I have auditioned for theatre, cruise ships, Holiday camps even, it's a must to know who a person is and this is someone who was going to be in the public eye?
I don't believe they did not know, or did not ask for identification and check it.
Plus the girl auditioned and was deemed good enough for the part. They get so many actors going through the door, I presume all in different age ranges for the character sent by there agents. They audition and screen test a good few times before a decision. A friend of mine auditioned 6 times once for a role and got to the last two or three. The casting lasted about 6months. They go through so much before a casting decision in those audition. They went through all that and deemed her the best and now decide she can't play the part from her auditions and fire her. I can't help feel sorry for her as a performer or got bad advice.
I just don't know how such a big company and job as corrie would be for a person's first big break could not check, and let it get this far? I think she did a silly think, but the company looks incompetent and so unprofessional.
I do feel however it was her fibbing more than ITV - if ITV had told her to lie (which I don't think they would have due to the fact her school friends would have been in the tabloids as soon as she made her screen debut) they would have told her to change all her online profiles etc (and they probably would have done a better job of it given the cached versions which were available) BEFORE the 'reveal'.
As far as I'm concerned she was offered the role and forgot (or thought she had more time before the reveal) to change her many online presences and did it pretty sharpish, which was still too late.
ITV are annoyed with the casting agency and aren't using them again, but some blame must fall on Katie - she's the one with the logins to her Twitter, Facebook etc so she alone would have been responsible for changing them. So she at least was complicit.
ITV are guilty of trusting the casting agencies a bit too much - a passport check might be introduced at audition or pre-offer stage now, I think!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30882619
*delete as appropriate
Well done for making our streets safer.
Even without DS there is no way her age would have stayed a secret forever. Someone would have blabbed sooner or later.
Can only imagine that DS is further hated (if that's possible) over at Corrie.
Who knows, she might have had a lucky escape.
It is.
DS have actually saved Corrie a lot of hassle. This would have been a lot worse for them if the character was already on screens. And once they started paying her and she declared tax etc it would have become a legal matter. The people who uncovered this have actually done Corrie a real favour. The controversy can't be nice for them but it was always going to come out and the sooner the better - they've got out of this before it had the potential to become a major story.
I agree, I think Corrie owe those who brought the issue to light a bit of a thank you. (getting shot of Blackburn would be a nice way of doing so
Especially as I suspect Antony Cotton's contract renewals are based on much dodgier dealings than this.
Poor girl, she didn't even have the chance to be outcast by the Corrie actors Clique lol.
Well, it doesn't, but when you have articles claiming the girl is 19 and evidence in a public domain proving that she isn't 19 then it's bound to arouse suspicion.
If the girl lied about her age then it's her own fault, and also the fault of ITV/Corrie for displaying an overwhelming incompetence in failing to perform any basic background check.
I feel bad for the girl as it was her first big break and I'm not going to put all blame on her, but at the end of the day if she's going to tell lies then she should be prepared to accept the consequences if she gets found out.
It is a pity ITV didn't do their research before employing her!
I guess it's just unusual that an actor (or their agent) feels the need to lie at this young age. If Katie's good enough to be cast, why wasn't she put forward for characters in their late teens and early 20s? Turns out now that it was the agent who encouraged her to knock a few years off, so that's the person who is responsible. When you're starting out, I imagine the advice of the agent is taken VERY seriously and this was a serious error of judgement.
I also wonder whether ITV would have sacked her if they hadn't been reading comments about her looking too old to play a 14 year old.
I wonder if she lied because she thought she wouldn't have had a chance if she'd told the truth, never believing she'd really get the part so it wouldn't matter, then when she did, panicked and tried to clear all of her online info fast, but not fast enough to avoid being found out?
When hiring over 16s, the process is: Contact agent and ask for specific people to audition and/or give details of the roles we're after and agent sends people they think are 'appropriate'. They will often send far more people than you want them to, as it makes them (agent) look good to their clients that they're getting them lots of auditions. You choose someone. You haggle with the agent over fees/salary. Come to agreement with agent. Send contract to agent. Agent gets actor to sign contract. Actor does the work. Payments for the work are sent to the agent. That's it. We've never had to deal with tax, NI as generally ALL agents are Schedule D (the nature of acting work - mostly short term, long gaps, lots of travel and expenses, etc - makes being PAYE impractical) and our contract is with the agent rather than the actor. Anything related to the actor's ID, right to work, book-keeping etc, is the job of the acting agency not the television production company (our contracts with the agents specifically state they deal with anything like this that might be needed, that's one of the things they do to justify their percentage).
I'm only speculating, but I'd suggest what happened here is... Granada need to cast someone to play 14 year old female. They advertise in The Stage/online/wherever and/or contact agencies direct with a brief for the role. They will likely say the age of actor they are looking for. Employing under 16s is a nightmare - I mentioned the paperwork etc above, there are daily timesheets and inspections from local education authority, having to hire on-set tutors, the youngsters can only work something like three hours a day, have to have a 15 minute break every hour, etc. So with 14 being so close in age to 16 and soaps having very intense production schedules, Granada understandably favour someone over 16. I'd expect their brief to have been something like "16-20 year old actor to play 14 year old female etc etc". Agencies want to send as many people as possible to auditions as I mentioned. Joe Bloggs at Wotnot Agents has an actor (PS the word actress is rarely used within TV circles, Equity 'banned' it as sexist in the 1980s) who is older than 20 but 'plays young'. He briefs her about the audition, she is very keen obviously - soaps offer regular (and high profile) work in an industry where that's damn rare. There's tacit acknowledgement that for the purposes of this audition said actor is "19 years old".
Generally speaking there's not much risk in doing this. The chances of actually being cast are very remote (100 auditions = 1 job or thereabouts) especially as the age gap means she's unlikely to come across as convincingly as that character as others auditioning. The actor is mainly there so (a) the agent looks good for getting her the audition, and (b) she can tell her mates she auditioned for Corrie. But sacre blue! Turns out this 14 year old character is supposed to be old beyond her years, and this 19 year old actor has such maturity! Beyond that of a 19 year old, let alone a 14 year old. She's perfect! Give her the part!
And... well, you know what happens next. As I say, I'm speculating, but for both the reason she auditioned as being a younger age than she actually is (and let's be honest, female actors tend to shed years off their age, just not normally 6 of them when they're only 25) and why Granada never saw any ID etc... for both issues, the answer lies with the agents. The truth would have come out sooner or later anyway. No point blaming people on here for 'outing' her. Blame Mr Bloggs at Wotnot Agency.
The thing about lying about your age is that it depends where you take the years off and how they fall in a lifetime.
For Sinitta, she's probably about 50 and she claims to be 40 something I think? That's not something you can visibly notice really.
Likewise, an 80 year old who claims to be 74 is not going to be questioned about it - who could tell?
But imagine if you're 16 and you're claiming to be 10. That would just be ridiculous.
And so we come to Katie, and claiming you're 19 when you're 25, as someone who is 25 myself, is almost as crazy IMO. There's a world of difference between those two ages in terms of maturity, lifestyle and experience. She wouldn't have been believed for very long.