Eggheads quiz show is poached by Channel 5

Dave ‘Tremendous Knowledge’ Rainford: Last March, popular Eggheads star Dave Rainford died of heart disease at the age of 51.  

The brainbox had been a regular on the BBC tea time quiz show since 2012 after taking over from CJ de Mooi.  

Dubbed Dave ‘Tremendous Knowledge’ Rainford, he was famous for being banned from pub quiz machines in Manchester. 

The professional quizzer had landed a spot on the show after he won £250,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2005. 

Dave was one of nine Eggheads alongside Kevin Ashman, Chris Hughes, Judith Keppel, Barry Simmons, Pat Gibson, David Rainford, Lisa Thiel, Steve Cooke and Beth Webster.

CJ de Mooi: De Mooi, real name Joseph Connagh, became a panellist on the BBC Two show Eggheads in 2003 after winning a series of game shows.

De Mooi has previously revealed he ran away from home at the age of 17 following an abusive childhood and became homeless in Rotherham and Sheffield.

From Amsterdam de Mooi moved to Cologne in Germany, where a chance meeting outside a gay bar led to the beginnings of his modelling career.

De Mooi adopted his surname when modelling, and he translates it as Dutch for ‘handsome’.

After five years he returned to Amsterdam and by 2000 he was applying to appear on television game and quiz shows.

He was a contestant on Pass the Buck and Fifteen to One, but it was The Weakest Link that led to him receiving national attention.

Despite consistently being the strongest player he was the third voted off and launched into a now infamous rant in his post-game interview.

In 2003 de Mooi received a phone call about a new concept quiz show called Eggheads, which features five quiz champions competing as a team against different challengers.

De Mooi sparked a flurry of headlines when his autobiography was published in 2015. In  it, he described being confronted by a knifeman whom he attacked and threw into one of Amsterdam’s famous canals when he was a penniless teenager in 1988. 

In May 2016, Dutch authorities said Mr Connagh was wanted for alleged ‘murder, manslaughter and assault’ and he was arrested at London Heathrow Airport. But the warrant was torn up at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in October 2016. 

Dutch authorities later dropped the extradition attempt – but de Mooi was left in serious financial trouble.  

One of the original quiz champions, in 2011 the star took a break to focus on his acting career before returning two years later. 

Two years ago, he told fans he was ‘dying from AIDS.’ He said he contracted HIV aged just 18 after being forced into prostitution while living on the streets ‘in a bid to stay alive’.

He has alleged that he was sacked from Eggheads in 2016 on the same day claims he sexually assaulted a man on a night out in Glasgow were dropped.