British former broadcaster Stuart Hall repeatedly plied two young teenage girls with drink and raped them in his BBC dressing room, a court heard on Wednesday.
Hall made them his personal playthings, “wholly submissive to his sexual demands,” state prosecutors claimed as they opened their case against the 84-year-old broadcasting veteran.
He poured champagne on the naked body of one alleged victim and took a cutting of her pubic hair as a trophy, Preston Crown Court in northwest England heard.
Hall is charged with 15 rapes and five indecent assaults against two complainants known only as Girl A and Girl B, who were under the age of consent, 16, when the alleged abuse began in the late 1970s.
The presenter’s lawyer said given their ages, the jury had to consider whether, legally, what happened was unlawful sex “somewhere between rape and consent,” and whether a complaint could still be brought after more than a year.
Hall presented the hit BBC television show It’s a Knockout in the 1970s and 1980s, fronted the BBC regional news in northwest England and was a soccer commentator.
He is serving a 30-month prison sentence after admitting indecently assaulting 13 young girls or women.
In the current cases, “he exploited the position of influence he had over each of them for his own sexual gratification,” prosecutor Peter Wright told Preston Crown Court in northwest England.
Speaking of the first alleged rape, Girl A told the court that when aged 14 or 15, Hall had given her a tour of the BBC studios in Manchester, plied her with rum and cola until she was “paralytic,” then “one thing led to another.”
“I remember him being on top of me, I remember his tongue being everywhere. I just went along with it,” she said.
Afterwards, Hall told her it was “our secret,” jurors heard.
She said she now wanted “revenge... for what he did.”
Hall’s lawyer Crispin Aylett asked her: “He didn’t rape you, did he?”
She said: “Not as such. I would not say he attacked me.”
Earlier, prosecutor Wright said that in the first alleged offence against Girl B, Hall “approached her in the stables, partially removed her clothing and raped her against a wall. He flattered her and told her she was special and that he loved her. She was a prepubescent child.”
Known for his florid descriptive style, scattered with allusions to literary classics, Hall was until recently a familiar voice on BBC radio, commentating on English Premier League soccer.
He is one of a string of British celebrities of the 1970s and 1980s to face investigation for sexual offences.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS