Mr. Hall, a familiar figure on radio and television in a career spanning five decades, was first arrested in December and questioned as part of Operation Yewtree, a far-reaching criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse from as long as 50 years ago. He initially denied the charges, calling them “pernicious, callous, cruel and, above all, spurious.”
His crimes, prosecutors say, took place between 1967 and 1986 and included putting his hands under the clothes of a 9-year-old girl, groping a 16-year-old girl’s breasts, and kissing a 13-year-old girl on the lips while telling her it was a way to “show thanks.”
Mr. Hall had also been charged with raping a 22-year-old woman in 1976, and was to have faced a separate trial. But after he pleaded guilty to the other charges, prosecutors said Thursday, the rape charge was withdrawn when the complainant in the case decided she did not want to give evidence in court.
A dozen well-known figures from the entertainment world, mostly men in their 70s and 80s, have been identified as suspects in Yewtree. Mr. Hall, known mainly as the host of the game show “It’s a Knockout” and as a witty sports commentator, is the first to admit any wrongdoing. Two of the other suspects have been formally charged with crimes; the rest are facing further questioning while prosecutors decide whether to charge them.
It is notoriously hard to secure convictions in sexual assault cases, particularly ones that took place long ago. Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for the North West, said Thursday that in Mr. Hall’s case, a number of women came forward with similar accusations, establishing a pattern of behavior.
“His victims did not know each other, and almost two decades separated the first and last assaults, but almost all of the victims, including one who was only nine at the time of the assault, provided strikingly similar accounts,” Mr. Afzal told reporters after Thursday’s hearing, in Preston Crown Court.
“Whether in public or private, Hall would first approach under friendly pretenses and then bide his time until the victim was isolated,” Mr. Afzal said. “He can only be described as an opportunistic predator.”
Operation Yewtree began after it emerged that the popular television personality Jimmy Savile, who died in 2011, had been a serial sex abuser with scores of victims over four decades. Stung by charges that they had done little to investigate numerous contemporaneous complaints against Mr. Savile, the police are now encouraging victims of sexual abuse to come forward, no matter when the abuse took place.
“The fact that these convictions have come a long time after they were committed shows that we will always take any allegations of sexual abuse extremely seriously,” Det. Chief Inspector Neil Esseen, who led the investigation for the Lancashire police department, said.
British TV Personality Pleads Guilty to Sex Abuse of Girls
Mr. Hall, a familiar figure on radio and television in a career spanning five decades, was first arrested in December and questioned as part of Operation Yewtree, a far-reaching criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse from as long as 50 years ago. He initially denied the charges, calling them “pernicious, callous, cruel and, above all, spurious.”
His crimes, prosecutors say, took place between 1967 and 1986 and included putting his hands under the clothes of a 9-year-old girl, groping a 16-year-old girl’s breasts, and kissing a 13-year-old girl on the lips while telling her it was a way to “show thanks.”
Mr. Hall had also been charged with raping a 22-year-old woman in 1976, and was to have faced a separate trial. But after he pleaded guilty to the other charges, prosecutors said Thursday, the rape charge was withdrawn when the complainant in the case decided she did not want to give evidence in court.
A dozen well-known figures from the entertainment world, mostly men in their 70s and 80s, have been identified as suspects in Yewtree. Mr. Hall, known mainly as the host of the game show “It’s a Knockout” and as a witty sports commentator, is the first to admit any wrongdoing. Two of the other suspects have been formally charged with crimes; the rest are facing further questioning while prosecutors decide whether to charge them.
It is notoriously hard to secure convictions in sexual assault cases, particularly ones that took place long ago. Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for the North West, said Thursday that in Mr. Hall’s case, a number of women came forward with similar accusations, establishing a pattern of behavior.
“His victims did not know each other, and almost two decades separated the first and last assaults, but almost all of the victims, including one who was only nine at the time of the assault, provided strikingly similar accounts,” Mr. Afzal told reporters after Thursday’s hearing, in Preston Crown Court.
“Whether in public or private, Hall would first approach under friendly pretenses and then bide his time until the victim was isolated,” Mr. Afzal said. “He can only be described as an opportunistic predator.”
Operation Yewtree began after it emerged that the popular television personality Jimmy Savile, who died in 2011, had been a serial sex abuser with scores of victims over four decades. Stung by charges that they had done little to investigate numerous contemporaneous complaints against Mr. Savile, the police are now encouraging victims of sexual abuse to come forward, no matter when the abuse took place.
“The fact that these convictions have come a long time after they were committed shows that we will always take any allegations of sexual abuse extremely seriously,” Det. Chief Inspector Neil Esseen, who led the investigation for the Lancashire police department, said.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/world/europe/british-tv-personality-pleads-guilty-to-sex-abuse-of-girls.html?partner=rss&emc=rss