Man fakes death to avoid Dave Gorman

A Canadian man faked his own death to avoid appearing on a radio show with Dave Gorman.

The man, identified only as Chris, had written to Gorman’s Radio 4 show Genius with a good idea to improve life, and was invited on the programme to discuss it.

He agreed to make the transatlantic trip, but shortly before the show was due to be recorded, he stopped  replying to emails.

Then, just two days before the taping, the production team received an email from his address, but signed 'Maria', which started with the words: 'Sadly, Chris is no longer with us.'

It talked about how dearly he would be missed – and that as he had often talked excitedly about the show it would be a wonderful tribute to him if they were to still include his idea in the show. But as the programme would not work without guests pitching their ideas, a replacement was arranged instead.

However, the ‘very odd’ message aroused Gorman’s suspicions, so a couple of days ago, gave Chris a call, but there was no answer and Dave left no message.

Five minutes later, Chris rang back to apologise for missing the call. But when Gorman introduced himself, the line went dead.

‘He was definitely alive,’ Gorman said. ‘But, I imagine, rather embarrassed.’

Telling the full story on his blog, Gorman wrote: ‘Occasionally people have to pull out and, inconvenient as it is, we understand

‘If Chris had emailed us to say that on reflection he really couldn't afford a trip to London to take part in a show, we would have been fine with that. But instead we just received no replies.

>> Dave Gorman's blog

Published: 10 Jun 2006