BBC radio hosts ‘ had threesome with a boy aged 14’
Sex sessions made him feel like a pervert, court is told
A BBC radio presenter stole a teenage boy’s innocence and had sex with him 15 times – once in a threesome with her husband, a court heard.
The boy was 14 when he was first said to have been propositioned by Julie Wadsworth, but it was 20 years before he reported them.
This was after he had been on a child protection course which he said brought back memories that left him feeling ‘weird and ashamed’. He claimed Mrs Wadsworth had sex with him 15 times over four years, both in woods and at her home.
Her broadcaster husband Tony joined in for group sex on one occasion, it is alleged, and watched or photographed the other sessions.
The couple – dubbed the ‘Richard and Judy of local radio’ after broadcasting together at BBC WM in the West Midlands and BBC Radio Leicester – are on trial accused of outraging public decency and indecent assault.
Many of the allegations concern Mrs Wadsworth, 60, touching boys in public, or ‘procuring’ them to touch her while her husband, 69, watched ‘in possession of a camera’.
Yesterday, one of their alleged victims said he was 14 when Mrs Wadsworth took his virginity. He added he only realised who they were years later when he heard their voices on the radio.
Now aged 36, he said the repeated sexual encounters left him feeling ‘like a dirty pervert’.
At Warwick Crown Court yesterday, the man, who cannot be named, said it began in spring 1995 when he spotted Mrs
‘I had never been with a woman’
Wadsworth sunbathing topless and she told him to ‘come and have a closer look’.
Soon after, he added, they met in woods near Atherstone, Warwickshire, where they performed sex acts on each other as her husband watched.
He went on to have full sex with Mrs Wadsworth both in public and at the couple’s home over four years.
He admitted being attracted to the presenter when he first saw her because she spoke ‘really posh’, but he said he ended up feeling ashamed.
In videos of police interviews played to the jury, the man described how the encounters began: ‘I was with a group of friends – there were four of us. They said, “Have you seen the streaker?” – and she was there [topless], sunbathing.
‘We were sort of spying on her and she saw us and she was saying “Come down and have a closer look”. But it was my tea time and I went home.’
Weeks later, he saw the couple again and claimed Mrs Wadsworth invited him ‘to come and have a play’.
He told the court: ‘I had never been with a woman before.’ A day or two later, their sexual activities began, and continued until he was 18.
He said that years later he ‘instantly recognised’ the couple’s voices while scanning radio channels, and an internet search soon identified them.
When he decided to report them, the man told police: ‘I had never told a soul.’
The Wadsworths, of Broughton Astley in Leicestershire, deny all charges. They are each accused of five counts of outraging public decency between July 1992 and June 1996.
Mr Wadsworth faces ten charges of indecent assault against seven boys aged under 18 between September 1992 and August 1999. Mrs Wadsworth faces 12 charges of the same offence. The case continues.