Stuart Hall charged with child sex abuse
STUART Stuart Hall, 82, the BBC Radio 5 Live sports reporter, has been charged with historic allegations of three counts of indecent assault on girls aged between nine and 16 years old between 1974 and 1984.
During that period, Hall presented the BBC’s regional news show for the North West.
Lancashire police say:
“Following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service an 82-year-old man has today been charged with three offences of indecent assault. He has been released without charge on the allegation of rape and a further allegation of indecent assault.”
Mr Hall is on bail. He is scheduled to appear before magistrates in Preston on 7 January.
A BBC spokesman adds:
“In light of the very serious nature of these charges Stuart Hall will not be working at the BBC while the police continue with their enquiries.”
Stuart Hall was made an OBE for his charity work. In 1999, former Labour sports spokesman Tom Pendry, hailed Hall an “icon with the youth of today”.
The BBC reported:
TV and radio presenter Stuart Hall has been given all-party backing for what is described as his “unique” style of broadcasting.
More than 50 MPs signed a House of Commons motion, congratulating Hall – renowned for his over-the-top metaphors – on celebrating 40 years in broadcasting.
The motion, by the former Labour sports spokesman Tom Pendry, says Mr Hall is an “icon with the youth of today” with his football reporting on BBC Radio 5 Live.
It says “his rich mellifluous voice is redolent of Sinden and Gielgud intertwining Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth et all amid the mud and tears at Accrington Stanley”.
It goes on to say “he recently forced the country into discovering Ozymandias, thus reinventing Percy Bysshe Shelley as a popular poet, and made the 1970s TV game-show It’s a Knockout into a “surreal quasi xenophobic art form”.
These are interesting times…
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File photo dated 22/03/12 of Stuart Hall after he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II at an Investiture ceremony in Buckingham Palace, London. Police investigating an allegation of rape and indecent assault have arrested the veteran BBC commentator Stuart Hall. The 82-year-old former It's A Knockout presenter was detained this morning, sources said.
Posted: 6th, December 2012 | In: Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
