'He's going to be pulped': Irish bookshops take David Walliams titles off the shelves

“HE’S GOING TO be pulped, what’s left of his catalogue, because no one’s ordering the books,” one bookshop manager in Dublin city said when asked what’s going to happen to the remaining stock of David Walliams’s children’s books.

Bookshops across Ireland have made the decision to take children’s books by the actor, comedian and children’s author off the shelves after allegations by multiple women of sexually inappropriate behaviour and grooming against him emerged today.

The accusations came to light after Walliams and his legal team failed to get a High Court injunction against two media organisations to prevent them from reporting on the allegations against him.

ITV today posted a full-length documentary on YouTube which features anonymised and named women who accuse Walliams of grooming them and using his fame to connect with them when they were still underage.

Walliams, 55, denies the allegations.

Today several organisations have cut ties with the comedian. Sky News reported that the Labour Party has suspended his membership, meanwhile his longtime literary agent has dropped him as a client.

The agency, ITG, said it was “deeply disturbed by the allegations”.

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The BBC is also in the process of removing some programmes featuring Walliams, including his hit comedy series Little Britain.

In Dublin city, children’s books by Walliams could still be found on the shelves of Easons and Dubray, but staff in both stores said that they were still awaiting advice from management on what will be done with their stock of his materials.

It’s understood that Dubray Books has been trying to “get rid” of their back stock of his titles, which are a huge hit amongst children, as “no orders are coming through” any more.

An Easons staff member said that there is very little back stock of Walliams’s books at this stage. 

“His stuff was big with children and there was a buzz in the shop when something new came out, but that won’t be happening anymore,” they added. 

Walliams’s one-time book publisher HarperCollins previously stated that his books had sold more than 60 million copies globally.

New editions of his books are not being published after HarperCollins dropped him as an author last year following an investigation into allegations that he had “harassed” young women.

No new copies of his books, which include ‘Gangster Granny’, a novel that was adapted for the screen by the BBC, have been in production since last year. 

Some stores in Ireland have already made the decision to take all his titles off their shelves, including Hodges Figgis.

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It’s understood that the remainder of the store’s stock of his books has been sold off, and that all that remained were bookmarks, which were taken off sale today.

A spokesperson for O’Mahoney’s bookshop in Limerick said that they have taken the decision to “pull his books from the shelves”.

They added that while Walliams “refutes” the allegations, “until there is further clarity” they would prefer not to stock his books.

In a statement to the Guardian and ITV News today, Walliams said that he is “not a sexual predator”, but that he has “behaved thoughtlessly”.

“Looking back, I realise that at times I behaved thoughtlessly towards other people I had casual sexual relationships with… I realise I did not always take people’s feelings properly into account. That is something I regret.

“And whilst a power imbalance is inevitable when one party is famous, abusing that power is something else entirely and it is something that I never did,” he added.

Walliams insisted that he never broke the law.

“I am devastated that some of the women I met ten to twenty years ago have now expressed hurt or anger towards me,” he further said.