Veteran BBC presenter Stuart Hall admits sex offences
Popular TV and radio commentator, awarded with OBE, pleads guilty to indecently assaulting young girls, with youngest victim aged only nine
Veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall pleaded guilty to sex offences yesterday, the latest British TV star from the 1970s and 1980s to be embroiled in abuse allegations.
Hall, 83, who was best known for hosting the family TV show It's a Knockout and was still working for the BBC as a soccer radio commentator until recently, admitted 14 counts of indecent offences against young girls over two decades, with the youngest victim aged just nine.
Hall has been described as an "opportunistic predator" by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after he admitted to a string of historic sex offences against girls.
Three months after dismissing the allegations as "pernicious, callous, cruel and, above all, spurious", the 83-year-old was forced to admit that his accusers had been telling the truth.
Hall first made the admissions at a brief hearing at Preston crown court on 16 April. But they could not be reported because he was facing trial over an allegation that he raped a 22-year-old woman in 1976. It emerged yesterday that the rape case had been left to lie on file, along with three other allegations of indecent assault.