Line of Duty: Martin Compston condemns ‘reckless, hurtful’ false reports about his and wife’s fertility

Star said his own family had reached out to support him ‘as if true’

Line of Dutystar Martin Compston has condemned false reports that he and his wife have gone through fertility struggles.

The actor, who plays DS Steve Arnott in the hit BBC cop drama, posted on Twitter on Sunday (28 March) about a newspaper article that had incorrectly interpreted comments he made during an interview on Radio 2.

“I get that things are heightened with Line of Duty on but this type of journalism has to be called out,” he wrote. “I will continue do so when it affects those around me.”

Compston added: “A wholly untrue, inaccurate and hurtful article about me and my wife [Tianna] appeared in the press today written by a freelance journalist with the headline, ‘Compston reveals he and his wife had fertility struggle.’ This false information was wrongly assumed from a Radio 2 interview I did yesterday in which no such issues were mentioned. No attempt was made to verify it pre-publication.”

He said the publication had removed the online report, but it still features in the print edition and unfortunately the report prompted his family to “reach out” to him “as if true”.

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“This type of reckless, lazy and untruthful journalism has caused needless distress in what is already a challenging period,” he said. “Fortunately my wife and I never had to go through the pain of fertility problems but we have friends that have and it’s heartbreaking. It’s not something that should be used to generate inaccurate click bait headlines.”

He called the report “shamefully insensitive and completely without foundation”.

The incorrect assumption is thought to have come from a conversation the star had with Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary about his role in surrogacy drama, The Nest, in which Compston and Sophie Rundle starred as a couple who were struggling to conceive.

Discussing the role, Compston had told O’Leary: “It was kind of a lot of life imitating art. A lot of stuff going on in that was going on, to some extent, in my personal life, so I was going through a lot.”

Line of Duty airs on Sundays at 9pm on BBC One.