People think it’s every schoolboy’s dream. It wasn’t
Victim of paedophile BBC DJs tells how they groomed him, then abused him
A VICTIM of paedophile BBC radio presenters Julie and Tony Wadsworth told yesterday how he was groomed and abused at 14 after spotting the couple having sex against a tree.
Darren Cunningham waived his anonymity to tell how he and a friend were invited back to the woods by the depraved pair the following week – and found topless Julie in stockings and suspenders.
Recalling how the brazen couple even turned up outside his family home, Mr Cunningham, now 39, said yesterday: ‘People must think it’s every schoolboy’s dream. It wasn’t.’
Commenting on a photo of himself at 14, the father of three added: ‘The Wadsworths told police and the court I was 17, maybe even 18, when it happened. But anyone can see I’m just a kid in that picture.’
He added: ‘I had just started puberty but was still a virgin. The only women I had seen even partly clothed was my auntie at swimming.’
The couple, who had been broadcasting on BBC Radio Leicester up until their arrest in December 2015, were jailed on Friday after being convicted of multiple counts of indecent assault and outraging public decency.
Mr Cunningham told the three-week trial how he had been out playing on his bike with friends when another boy rode past and told them about a woman walking towards them in a skirt split to the side, making it obvious she had no knickers on.
The ‘giggling’ couple asked the boys if there was anywhere more private, and were led to a nearby bluebell wood where they had sex against a tree.
Mr Cunningham told the Sun on Sunday: ‘We were confronted with a woman old enough to be our mother running through the woods with no knickers on asking us if we wanted to play and have sex with her. We were gobsmacked, and to make it even more weird her husband was egging her on.
‘We tried to treat it all as banter and a big joke. But looking back, they knew we were schoolboys and what they did was wrong.’
When the Wadsworths had finished having sex, they invited Mr Cunningham and his friend back the following week, with Julie promising: ‘We might let you have a play.’
The two boys returned to the wood beside Atherstone Golf Club in Warwickshire the following Saturday, they found topless Mrs Wadsworth sitting in stockings and suspenders. Her husband was leaning against a nearby tree, camera in hand.
Mr Cunningham added: ‘ My mate went behind the bush with her first but was back within minutes saying he was scared because the husband had a camera and he thought he was taking photos. ‘Then I heard her shout it was my turn. I was nervous but she called me over next and she was sitting down naked.’
Mr Cunningham said Mrs Wadsworth – who never gave her name – insisted her husband go for a walk because his camera was ‘making the boys jittery’. She told the teenager to touch her inti- mately before taking down his trousers to perform a sex act on him.
He added: ‘It was the first time in my life, and I can’t say it wasn’t pleasant. She was totally in control. She was giggling as she did it.
‘But I suddenly looked up and saw him in the bushes taking photos. She told me to ignore him.’
Although some of his friends continued returning to the woods, he decided to stay away – only to be confronted by the Wadsworths outside his home.
Mr Cunningham added: ‘My pals said the woman had been asking for me. She told them to tell me she would have full sex with me.
One Saturday morning I almost fainted when I looked out of my bedroom window and they were standing by the front gate.
‘She seemed desperate for sex. My head was spinning but I told them I was too scared and to leave.’ The confrontation in 1992 was the last time Mr Cunningham saw the couple before the trial.
The Wadsworths, of Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, were each sentenced to five years in jail and put on the sex offenders’ register for life when sentenced at Warwick Crown Court on Friday.
Mr Cunningham said: ‘They are nasty people.’
‘Her husband was egging her on’