Pop superstar ‘raped girl, 14, on hotel bed’

Police probe claims Briton took fan’s virginity in 1970s

A BRITISH pop star has been accused of raping a 14-year-old girl at the height of his fame in the 1970s.

The singer is alleged to have attacked the teenager after his bodyguard picked her out from the front row of one of his concerts.

The woman, now in her 50s, says the singer plied her with champagne before pinning her down on a hotel bed and taking her virginity. She claimed the alleged ordeal, which happened overseas, left her with bruises and affected her ‘entire adult life’.

The allegations are now being probed by a police force abroad as it is out of Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction. A spokesman for the prosecuting authority said: ‘We can confirm we received a file relating to this matter that is back with the police for further investigation.’

The alleged victim claimed she and her friends – aged 13 and 14 – had been given free tickets to the superstar’s concert. She said after she was plucked from the crowd by the singer’s bodyguard she was invited to his hotel the next day.

The woman said the group turned up hoping to get an autograph – but the bodyguard ushered her away from her friends and took her upstairs to his suite.

The superstar is said to have been wearing a short white robe and posed for photos with her with his arm around her waist.

The teenager was then invited to his bedroom and was worried about saying no as she had been brought up to ‘respect her elders’.

At the time, the alleged victim was a ‘naive 14-year-old virgin’ who came from a religious family and had never kissed someone.

She said: ‘He offered me Dom Perignon Champagne. I didn’t know what that was at the time. It looked like soda. At that age, you just feel you have to be with the crowd so I took a sip and it was the most vile thing I’d ever had.

‘All I wanted to do was get it down in one gulp. That is what I did, not realising I was drinking alcohol for the first time.

‘Then he gave me another glass and kept telling me how lovely I was and “you have such beautiful eyes, I really like you,” and he carried on with this flirtatiousness.

‘And before I knew it, it was like an immobility had set in. He had me down on the bed and in one fell swoop his gown was off.’ She claimed he then attacked her, adding: ‘I was very confused. It was just beyond me. I was very numb and found I could not move. All I heard repetitively as he was pinning me down was, “relax, relax”. Those words have just stuck with me over the years.’

Afterwards she said she became frightened and ran out of the hotel – but later inexplicably returned to get his autograph. It was only when she got home that she said she noticed she had bruises ‘all over’ her body and ‘hand imprints’ on her arm and neck.

The woman claimed she emailed her allegations to the Metropolitan Police in 2013 after hearing about Operation Yewtree, which investigates historical sexual abuse allegations, but she was told it was out of the police force’s jurisdiction because the alleged offence happened abroad.

An official probe was then launched by the local police force in 2014 but it was dropped six months later. It is now being looked at again by a new prosecutor and investigating officer.

A police spokesman said: ‘The case is currently under investigation and following that will be with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for a decision regarding prosecution.’

‘Bruises all over my body’