Ex-Radio 1 DJ Westwood accused of having sex with girl, 14
Hip-hop veteran preyed on us, claim TEN more women
FORMER Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood is facing fresh allegations – including having sex with a girl of 14.
A further ten women have come forward to accuse the 64-year- old of sexual misconduct, it was revealed yesterday.
Four say they were under 18 when the alleged incidents happened and one said she was 14 when she first had sex with the former BBC presenter, who was in his 30s at the time.
The ten women, who are all black, are among 17 who accuse the DJ of abusing his position as a key figure in Britain’s hip-hop scene to exploit them sexually between 1990 and 2020. Westwood strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Two of the women making the latest allegations claim that the relationships took a severe toll on their mental health and led to suicide attempts.
One said Westwood began a relationship with her in the 1990s when they met while he was DJing at a nightclub in Vauxhall, south London. She said she told him she was only 14 but he continued to pursue contact with her, taking her to a flat where they had sex.
The legal age of consent in England and Wales is 16.
The alleged victim, called Esther, said she ended contact with the DJ when she was 16 and realised the relationship felt like a ‘dirty little secret’.
‘I kind of thought it was normal but that’s because I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation,’ she told the BBC and The Guardian, who jointly investigated the claims. ‘It wasn’t a relationship and it wasn’t about love, it was just a thing, and a thing you couldn’t discuss with anybody,’
She says it felt like the DJ had groomed her, describing Westwood as a ‘predator’ and herself as ‘prey’.
The latest allegations come a week after the BBC said it would publish a review of the complaints it had received about the presenter, having previously claimed there was no record of concerns being raised.
Westwood, a DJ at Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra from 1994 to 2013, quit his Capital Xtra show in April following the initial sexual misconduct allegations. The BBC’s director- general, Tim Davie, vowed the corporation would undertake a ‘full deep dive’ and deliver a report on the complaints in the next two weeks.
Westwood, the son of an Anglican bishop and said to have been the inspiration for Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Ali G, is yet to comment on the new allegations.
He said when previous allegations surfaced: ‘I can categorically say that I have never had an inappropriate relationship with anyone under the age of 18.’
In April, a representative said: ‘Tim Westwood strongly denies all allegations of inappropriate behaviour. In a career that has spanned 40 years, there have never been any complaints made against him officially or unofficially.
‘Tim Westwood strongly rejects all allegations of wrongdoing.’
Among the DJ’s latest accusers is a woman identified as ‘Lydia’, who told the BBC and The Guardian that she formed a relationship with him in 1997, when she was 16 and he was in his 40s.
Westwood had told her he was 27 and they entered an 18-month sexual relationship after the DJ rang her following a meeting in a club in Streatham, south London, she said.
She had been studying for her A-levels at the time and said that Westwood exhibited controlling behaviour, allegedly checking her voicemails and criticising her choice of clothing.
She saw Westwood’s passport and realised he was not in his 20s but was born in 1957.
‘I thought, “Oh that’s almost as old as my mother”. And that was shocking. I felt really sick,’ she told the reporting team.
‘He didn’t force me to have sex with him, it was by choice, but it didn’t feel like a healthy sexual relationship because he was a grown man and I was a teenager.’
Lydia said she attempted suicide by the end of the alleged relationship and decided to come forward following Westwood’s previous denial about having a relationship with anyone under 18.
Westwood has been contacted for comment.
‘It wasn’t about love’