BBC staff failed to report disgraced presenter Stuart Hall indulging in "inappropriate sexual conduct" partly because he was seen as an "untouchable" celebrity, a report has found.
Staff at BBC Manchester knew the former It's A Knockout host was taking women into his dressing room for sex, although not that some of them were under age, a report by former High Court judge Dame Linda Dobbs found.
The report said there were 21 complainants linked to Hall's work at the BBC, with the youngest aged 10, between 1967 and 1991, but no complaints were passed on to senior management.
Hall, now 86, was released in December after serving half of a five-year jail term for historical indecent assaults against girls aged between nine and 17.
In an interview in Thursday's Sun, he hit out at his accusers, saying: "To go from being a national treasure to the bottom of the pond has been very difficult.
Related reading
BBC star Jimmy Savile 'abused 60 people at hospital'
"The vindictive, malicious people who have impugned me will think again. I'm hoping for fairness from everybody."
The report said people who were interviewed gave various reasons for a failure to report him, including it being nothing to do with them, fears they were too junior to interfere or might lose their job, or that it was up to management to take action.
The report said young female visitors to BBC Manchester were jokingly referred to as "Hall's nieces" who had come for "elocution lessons".
It also referred to Hall's "laddish sexuality, characterised by risque banter and often unwanted tactility".
The report criticised Ray Colley - regional television manager at BBC Manchester in the 1970s, and one of freelancer Hall's bosses - saying that while there was no evidence he had known about Hall's activities, he should have done.
Colley, the report said, gave Hall a dressing down about his conduct after the former arrived at BBC Manchester in 1970, suggesting rumours about Hall's sexual activity were circulating even then. However he failed to take any subsequent "positive steps" to check if Hall was behaving.
In June 2013, Hall was jailed for 15 months after he admitted indecently assaulting 13 girls, before the sentence was doubled by the Court of the Appeal, which ruled it was "inadequate".
Last May he received an additional 30 months in jail - to run consecutively - for two indecent assaults on another girl.
Share
