Stuart Hall Victim Tells Court: 'I Feel Incredibly Dirty, Ashamed'

'I Feel Incredibly Dirty, Ashamed,' Stuart Hall Victim Tells Court

A woman wept as she told a court how paedophile "predator" Stuart Hall sexually abused her aged 12.

The victim, now in her late 40s, wiped away tears as she said the former BBC broadcaster, now 84, forced his tongue in her mouth, repeating "You're special" as he raped her like a "rag doll".

A year later, she said she awoke with Hall, a family friend, at her bedside molesting her as she lay "rigid and still", and he told her: "I told you you are special - and you are."

Former BBC broadcaster presenter Stuart Hall, pictured here after his last court case in June 2013

The witness told the jury at Preston Crown Court: "I think absolutely it's wrong. It is someone you have trusted.

"I didn't want my father to be ashamed of me. I felt incredibly dirty, ashamed and confused and very frightened and I chose to bury it because I didn't want to appear dirty in front of anybody, but I didn't want anybody to be disappointed in me, particularly my father."

Hall, 84, has pleaded not guilty to 20 allegations of rape and indecent assault between 1976 and 1981 against two young girls, who knew him as a family friend.

The popular TV celebrity allegedly treated the girls as sexual "playthings" after plying them with alcohol.

The victim, known only as girl B, said she was first attacked by Hall when she was just 12 in the mid-1970s.

She was working at a stables when the TV celebrity turned up unannounced on a motorbike.

He took her to a corner of the stables and pushed her up against the wall, she told the jury.

She said: "He pushed his mouth on mine, he forced his tongue between my teeth. He felt my body, particularly my chest. My dungarees were removed.

"He was constantly speaking... telling me I was beautiful and lovely and he managed to get inside my shirt. His hands travelled down...

"All the time I was being pushed against the walll.

"I was smaller than him, he had to lift me."

Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, asked how she felt at the time.

She replied: "Extremely frightened and very confused and very shocked, almost shocked to the point of immobility."

She said Hall made "guttural" noises as she was raped, which she described as "excruciatingly painful".

"I didn't say a word. I didn't fight. I didn't do anything, actually. I just was there, just like a rag doll. I'm sorry. He said it repeatedly, I was special... He never stopped speaking, repeating the same thing.

"He shuddered and released me. I remember him telling me he loved me, I was special, he loved me, I was beautiful and he left. I was completely numb and I just walked out, I didn't say anything. I didn't tell a soul."

The victim said she was attacked again by Hall around a year later as she lay sleeping.

She said: "I woke up feeling a very warm sensation between my legs... and hearing somebody speaking to me.

"I opened my eyes and saw Stuart Hall."

She said she shut her eyes as quickly as she opened them and he continued to touch her "for what felt like an eternity, telling me 'See, you like it, you want this. I told you you were special and you are'. I did not do anything. I just lay as rigid and still as I could."

Wright asked the witness: "How did you feel about this?"

She replied: "At 12, 13, you don't have the reasoning you have as an adult, you're a child. I didn't want my father to be ashamed."

Girl B said Hall went on to rape her at two BBC studios in Manchester - Piccadilly and Oxford Road. She said she was aged 13 going on 14 when she became interested in a career in television, and the regional news presenter invited her to watch him work at Piccadilly.

She said: "There was no specific place that was his but there was somewhere where he went, where I went with him. I was alone a lot with him. Usually there would be champagne, which I was not forced to drink but I was expected to drink by Stuart."

Intercourse would then take place, she told Wright.

She said: "It was expected and I just did it. I figured that the quicker it was done, the quicker it was over and it would stop. "He told me categorically that I wanted it. Those words remain in my head. It was a constant narrative - how beautiful I was, how much I wanted it, how my body had responded."

She said sex took place on a sofa on up to eight occasions. Asked what happened after intercourse, she said: "He would do rehearsals and then do the live programme. We would go for a drink in the bar and then we would leave and he would take me home."

The witness said she was aged 14 or 15 when a similar pattern of abuse occurred at the BBC's Oxford Road studios.

She said: "There was a dressing room that had two rooms which belonged to Stuart. The first room was quite spartan, very normal. There was an ante-room...a leather sofa on the back wall. Along the sofa was a mirror and there was this shelf there with various pictures of women. The lighting was subdued.

"I spent a lot of time locked in there. Not answering the door. He told me not to answer the door. He locked me in."

Again champagne was consumed before intercourse, she said.

Mr Wright asked her: "Did he ever ask you whether you wanted to have sexual intercourse?"

She replied: "It was never a question. It was expected."

She said sex took place on a similar number of occasions to Piccadilly. The prosecutor asked: "How did you feel?"

She said: "Dirty. Ashamed. Responsible and wanting to take the responsibility of it.

"Feeling it was my fault because I never fought back . I just used to lie there. I just used to take myself to a different place in my head."

She said she felt she did not have a choice in the situation. Girl B added: "The choice I made was not to tell. The choice I made was to take the responsibility."

Wright asked her: "Did you give him any indication that you wanted to participate in these acts?"

She said: "I never gave him any indication.

"Did I do what was expected? Yes, but I did not ask."

She told the court that up until the defendant's first arrest in December 2012, she thought she was the only victim.

The witness said there was also a flat in Sale, Cheshire, where Hall would take her "many many times" and abuse her on occasions for up to two hours, sometimes involving champagne being poured over her or parts of him.

Wright asked her why she contacted police after 36 years of silence.

She replied: "Stuart had just been sentenced for his previous offences, for me it was not about increasing the sentence, for me it was about telling the truth it was not just indecent assault.

"I want to be able to close the door and move on with my life and tell the truth. It was purely for the first time ever something for me I had to do to move on with my life."

Hall was jailed last year after he pleaded guilty to 14 offences of indecent assault against 13 girls, aged nine to 17, at the same court and was jailed for 15 months, subsequently increased to 30 months at the Court of Appeal.

He denies raping the two girls and claims the sex was consensual. The trial was adjourned until tomorrow morning.

Close

What's Hot