Bust-up in Sky newsroom

It was a newsroom bust-up that could have graced an episode of TV's Drop the Dead Donkey.

Scene One: Sky Studio. News presenter Frank Partridge is calmly reading the news, his colleague Kay Burley by his side. Miss Burley signs off with "and finally" and the pair close the channel's afternoon news.

Scene Two: Mr Partridge - believing his co-anchor to have been given the lion's share of bulletins - slaps her across the face so hard her head hits a door, leaving her jaw bruised.

Scene Three: The afternoon bulletin is over. The pair - said to have once been romantically involved - erupt in a furious row. Miss Burley launches a tirade of abuse at Mr Partridge, according to startled witnesses.

This was the real drama on Tuesday at BSkyB's Isleworth headquarters, and last night the building was alive with gossip about the incident. Insiders say Mr Partridge, 37, slapped Miss Burley, 40, after she let him get only a few words in as they signed off. One source claimed Miss Burley burst into tears and stormed off.

Yesterday Mr Partridge, a former Radio One newsreader, was called before Sky News bosses and could face disciplinary action.

Later, as he left the studio, he said: "I have been instructed not to comment. There is a compulsory process."

Miss Burley, who is not facing disciplinary action, fronted the afternoon news programme yesterday with a different presenter after Mr Partridge rang in sick with the flu.

He is understood to have offered his apologies and claimed that any contact-with Miss Burley was "accidental"-A senior Sky source said: "Frank was getting more and more cheesed off because he thought Kay was doing all the 'and finally' pieces and he felt he wasn't getting a fair slice of the action. It sounds petty, but these people have egos."

A Sky spokesman said: "Executives have spoken with the employees and are considering what further action, if any, there is to take."

Since joining Sky in 1988 Miss Burley has been one of the station's highest profile presenters.

She has broken all major news stories, including the death of Princess Diana, the attack on the World Trade Center and the Concorde crash.

Mr Partridge joined Sky in 1993 from the BBC. He made the headlines himself in 1994 when former EastEnders actress Susanna Dawson revealed he was the father of her child.

Only a month earlier, Miss Burley had been seen with Mr Partridge, crying on his shoulder after her break-up with her husband, record producer Steve Kuttner.

In 1994 she suffered a broken nose after a row with her husband at their London home and was off work for two weeks.

Months later she was photographed leaving Gatwick airport with Mr Partridge. The couple, who copresented Live at Five, checked into a Gibraltar hotel, but booked rooms on different floors and quickly parted to quash rumours that they might be having an affair.

Mr Partridge, who lives in west London, separated from his girlfriend Sybil Roscoe shortly before the break, which Miss Burley insisted was a working break.