A bitter row has ignited between the family of Channel Nine icon Ken Sutcliffe and his son’s ex-boyfriend, with the jilted lover tearfully opening up about how their relationship fell apart after a spider bite.
Trent Lynch, 53, has been hit with an apprehended violence order on behalf of his ex, Scott Sutcliffe, 42, and is charged with stalking or intimidating the son of Australian TV royalty because of a series of phone calls.
The messy row is understood to have taken a toll on Sutcliffe Sr – who retired after 35 years of work for Channel Nine, most recently as its Sydney sports anchor – after Lynch threatened to spill unsubstantiated family secrets to the media.
Speaking through tears to Daily Mail Australia following a court appearance, Lynch claimed that his relationship fell apart after Sutcliffe Jr. – who worked for Lynch’s landscaping company Outside Image Gardening – suffered a serious reaction to a spider bite.
Scott Sutcliffe was rushed to hospital, with father Ken racing to his son’s bedside as he was treated by doctors. The spider species has never been identified.
Sutcliffe Jr. then made the decision to suddenly end the relationship.
Trent Lynch, 52, ex-boyfriend of the son of TV icon Ken Sutcliffe, has revealed his bitter stoush with the Sutcliffe clan
Lynch blames Nine TV legend Ken Sutcliffe for encouraging his son Scott (pictured with his father in 2001) to split with him after 17 years
Lynch, who admits using meth, sobbed as he told Daily Mail Australia: ‘He (Scott) phoned me up and called me “a filthy drug addict” and told me to “f*** off!”
Lynch blames Nine’s former sports presenter for encouraging his son to split up with him.
He claims he has been denied $50,000 he says he is owed from the sale of the home he shared with Sutcliffe in Dee Why on Sydney’s northern beaches.
The Sutcliffe family, via the Nine Network, declined to comment.
But Lynch insists he is just trying to get what he was promised and wept as he revealed his heartbreak over the split.
Lynch said the break-up ‘ruined’ him, and said: ‘I love (Ken’s) son to death.’
Scott Sutcliffe (pictured) and Trent Lynch split up in 2020 after Lynch admits he was using ‘too much’ meth
Lynch and Sutcliffe split up in November 2019 after Lynch admits he was using ‘too much’ meth.
Sutcliffe is also a self-confessed drug user and pleaded guilty to using and possessing party drug GHB when he was picked up by police in 2016, according to court records.
Lynch said: ‘We just needed to stop (using drugs) and it was time to stop – then Ken jumped in.’
‘He said we had a horrible relationship, we were “toxic” together.
‘But everybody I know in Sydney said we were the most beautiful couple they had ever met.
‘We had the most beautiful life – we had shared everything… we worked together, we lived together, we loved together.’
Lynch (pictured, breaking down) claims he had a ‘beautiful life’ with Sutcliffe’s son
Former Wide World of Sports host Ken Sutcliffe has been married to his wife Anne (pictured together in 2014) for 53 years
Lynch claims Ken Sutcliffe, 75, who lives with his wife Anne in their family home near rural Mudgee, 275km north-west of Sydney, intervened while his son was in hospital, encouraging them to break up.
‘I’ve cleaned up my life, he’s cleaned up his life – we could have done it together, easily,’ he said.
Scott Sutcliffe (pictured) and Trent Lynch are said to have been together for 17 years before their recent break up
‘They think that there’s something special about them that everyone’s interested in them. He’s a nobody – he’s just a newsreader, for God’s sake…’
The split turned even uglier when Sutcliffe Jr and Lynch sold the home they shared in the beachside suburb of Dee Why.
The couple had bought the $635,000 unit together in 2012 based on Lynch’s gardening business and proceeds of the sale of his former home, and $100,000 from Sutcliffe.
The lump sum was a gift from Ken Sutcliffe to his son as his share of the profits on a property the family had sold in Mudgee, claimed Lynch.
Trent Lynch says he angrily confronted Scott’s former TV star father Ken Sutcliffe about $50,000 he claims he is owed from the sale of the couple’s home in Dee Why
Ken Sutcliffe (left) was a household name – spending more than 35 years at the Nine Network (pictured above with Karen Tso and Jaynie Seal in 2005)
‘I got every one of our clients and we both did the hard work – but he knew nothing about landscaping. He just did the labouring,’ Lynch claimed.
Lynch claimed Sutcliffe had always promised him half of that lump sum to repay him for sharing his life with him.
Jilted lover’s bizarre murder probe link
Trent Lynch was seen in news footage helping detectives investigating the death
Troubled jilted lover Trent Lynch was at the centre of a murder probe in 2021 when a man died while staying with him at his Rushcutters Bay unit.
Lynch had given gay couple Chris Stanmore and Phillip Papaefthymiou a bed for the night after they and their dog were made homeless.
He had previously known them when they were neighbours in Crows Nest on Sydney’s lower north shore, but the pair’s warehouse home later went up in flames.
But the day after he took them in, the pair had a furious row which they then took downstairs to the basement car park and it erupted into a brawl.
Mr Stanmore, 39, collapsed and Mr Papaefthymiou, a former ice addict and hairdresser, raised the alarm, with Lynch rushing to the scene wearing just a towel.
Paramedics raced to the inner city apartment block but were unable to save Mr Stanmore who was dead on arrival at nearby St Vincent’s Hospital.
Phillip Papaefthymiou was charged with his partner’s murder and taken away in a police van with fresh bruises showing on his face
Mr Papaefthymiou was charged with his partner’s murder and taken away in the back of a police van with fresh bruises showing on his face.
Lynch was also seen in news footage helping detectives and walking to nearby Kings Cross police station to give a statement.
A post mortem later revealed Mr Stanmore had actually died of a heart attack and Mr Papaefthymiou was freed and all charges dropped after six months in jail awaiting trial.
Lynch added: ‘A lot of bad things have happened since I split with Scott.’
‘We first met when I spotted him out on the town and asked him for dinner,’ said Lynch.
‘One thing led to another and he ended up moving straight into my house.
‘He had five towels – I had a three-storey house in town, full of furniture, and a car and my business and everything. I carried him the whole time.
‘That’s why he always said to me, “I promise I’ll give you $50,000.”‘
But in the wake of the split and subsequent sale of the home in 2020 for $1.2million, he says he has been denied the $50,000 by the Sutcliffe family.
Lynch says he angrily confronted Scott’s former TV star father about it.
‘Doesn’t your son’s word mean anything?’ he says he told Ken Sutcliffe in the heated exchange.
‘Your son promised me for 10 years of a loving relationship that that was mine. Don’t you think you should honour that?’
He added: ‘We agreed to that 50-50 share.’
But although Lynch now says he has quit meth, he admits phoning his former lover every day and making threats to spill family secrets in revenge over the alleged $50,000 broken promise.
He claims he was treated like a son during the years he was with Scott – including landscaping Ken Sutcliffe’s family home – and was privy to all their intimate gossip.
In the wake of the split, Lynch’s life spiralled further out of control – including being caught up in a murder investigation when a man who was couch-surfing with him died in his basement car park during a fight with his ice addict gay lover.
Lynch has now been charged with mounting a four-month campaign of stalking and harassing phone calls culminating in threats made on Valentine’s Day and will face Downing Centre Local Court in Sydney on April 3.
Police have also taken out an apprehended violence restraining order against him on Scott Sutcliffe’s behalf.
‘To treat me like that – it just shows no respect for what we had,’ Lynch said. ‘I’ve never touched him in my life.
‘I’ve never laid a finger on him in a fight. I’ve never touched him physically and I never would.
‘The threats were more that I was going to hurt myself than anything. It’s ruined my life.
‘I still can’t understand how two people who love each other so much end up like this.’
Former sports presenter Ken, who was a beloved regular on TV screens for more than 35 years until he retired in 2016, previously hit back at Lynch’s claims.
‘I don’t care what this man says,’ the 75-year-old father-of-three told Daily Mail Australia last month. ‘He is under arrest.
‘He’s been charged and he was arrested the other day for threatening our lives. That’s all.’
He added: ‘This is a private matter between my son and him.’
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