Amanda Abbington’s parents sympathise with Giovanni Pernice

Amanda Abbington’s parents have spoken out for the first time and revealed that they sympathise with their daughter’s former Strictly Come Dancing dance partner, Giovanni Pernice.

The Sherlock actress, 50, quit Strictly after five weeks last year, claiming that her experience on the BBC series left her with PTSD after working with, Pernice, 33.

She broke her silence in June as she called his style of teaching ‘unnecessary, abusive, cruel and mean’ and said she complained over concerns he ‘could do that to other people’.

More recently, she claimed in an interview with Channel 4’s  Krishnan Guru-Murthy that Pernice is blocking access to 50 hours of footage showing a ‘toxic’ rehearsal room. Pernice has denied any wrongdoing.

Following this public fallout, Amanda’s parents Patsy, 75, and John, 77, spoke to MailOnline from their home in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, admitting that they have some sympathy for the professional dancer.

‘I’d feel sorry for him if Amanda wasn’t the one involved in this,’ says John.

‘Like other dancers on Strictly, he was put in a situation where he was expected to train people when he’d not been taught how to train.

He then explained that it would be tough to train someone when that isn’t what the dancers are qualified to do.

‘They were let out of dance school at a young age. Giovanni started at Strictly at 21 or 22. How on earth can you train people when you’ve not been trained to do that?’

In the interview, the couple also spoke about the effect this ordeal has had on them.

‘As soon as I wake up in the mornings and when I go to bed at night I am worrying about it,’ said John. ‘It’s the after-effects I worry about too. Will she be able to carry on with her career?’

Patsy added: ‘She has apologised to us because of what we’re going through. It’s been hard.’

‘It was something that should have been so lovely,’ Patsy added about the whole dancing competition, a sentiment that has been echoed by Amanda who has spoken about how excited she was to take part in the competition. 

‘We were all looking forward to it. After the first show, she came back and said it was the hardest thing she’d ever done,’ said John.

Amanda’s mother then explained that her daughter had ‘completely changed’ during the competition. 

‘I knew something was wrong with her because I could see the change in her,’ said Patsy. ‘She had completely changed.’

‘She did not want to go in because she hated it so much. Jonathan [her partner] had to coax her to get into the car,’ said John.

‘She missed a week because she was not well, and went back for one week and realised then that she could not take what was happening to her.

‘Then [her doctor] diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder.’

Her father then went on to say that the experience totally changed Amanda: ‘Certainly, by January and February [this year] she was not the same girl.’

‘She is normally such a lively, bubbly person and she completely went the other way.

‘Filming [for Strictly] was between September and November. I think the change in her came then because of the pressure and the realisation of what she’d done. What had she done? She had left Strictly because she felt she was being treated badly.’

The BBC is set to continue with a new season in the autumn but has confirmed that they will be making drastic changes to the show.

It was detailed that the dance rehearsals will now be monitored, explaining ‘a production team member present during training room rehearsals at all times.’

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