Stuart Hall, a popular and long-serving BBC commentator, admitted on Tuesday to the charge of indecently assaulting a girl under the age of 16, but denied 20 other charges of sexual assault.
He is to go on trial for the alleged offence of 15 rapes and five indecent assaults against two minor girls between the years 1976 and 1981.
Mr. Hall is one of several high profile media personalities whose sexual transgressions have recently come to light under the Jimmy Savile effect. Mr. Savile, a radio and television presenter, and celebrated BBC media personality, was discovered after his death to have been a predatory sex offender who raped and otherwise sexually abused hundreds of children during his media career.
Mr. Hall, now 84, was first arrested in 2012 on charges of multiple sexual offences.
Just one week ago, celebrity publicist Max Richards, 71, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment for a string of sexual offences against young girls and women whom he had groomed during his professional career.
Mr. Richards’ was the first conviction under Operation Yewtree, the investigation set up in October 2012 by the Metropolitan police into sexual abuse allegations, especially against children, in the wake of the Savile scandal. The case against Mr. Hall however falls outside the Operation Yewtree investigation.
Last month Dave Lee Travis, 68, a former Radio 1 DJ was charged by the police under Operation Yewtree on one count of indecent assault on a young woman. Mr. Travis had been earlier cleared of 12 counts of indecent assault.
In all these cases, the accused used their position as powerful media icons to terrorise their victims into acquiescence. Many of the alleged crimes took place as long ago as in the 1970s.
It is due to the enabling environment for disclosure that the police have created after the Savile scandal, that victims are coming forward to speak out.
More skeletons are expected to tumble out of the cupboard in the course of the Yewtree investigation.
Some on whom suspicion had fallen have subsequently been cleared, like comedian Freddie Starr, 71, who was arrested in 2012 and released on bail. He was recently let off by the Crown Persecution Service that cited insufficient evidence.
