Singer linked to Top of Pops girl ‘is US star still touring’
THE world f amous singer accused of having sex with 15year-old Top of the Pops dancer Claire McAlpine is an American who is still touring today, it was claimed yesterday.
The one-time heartthrob spent the night with the troubled teenager after BBC staff plucked her from a crowd of dancers on the show, one of her close friends says.
Miss McAlpine – the girl at the centre of the child sex rumours that have dogged Tony Blackburn – committed suicide shortly after the alleged incident in 1971.
Before she died, Miss McAlpine wrote in her diary about being molested, naming the DJ alongside a string of other celebrities whom, she claimed, had ‘ used’ her. Blackburn has vehemently denied the claim.
Yesterday, her close friend, Kelly Gold, revealed that one of the alleged culprits is an American musician who is ‘still going’ today.
Speaking at her home in Ringwood, Dorset, Miss Gold, 60, a chiropodist, said: ‘He’s an American singer and is still around today. He is still going and has had a “wonderful” career.’
But she refused to name the star. ‘I can’t say any more or I will get sued,’ she said. ‘I will not be naming the famous singer mainly because I do not wish [to face] a law suit.
‘If the name or names inside Claire McAlpine’s diary ever become public knowledge… the world will know.’ Miss Gold first revealed last weekend that Miss McAlpine slept with a world f amous musician, as she claimed that several of the teenager’s abusers are still alive.
‘ We got told this famous singer was going to be one of the artists that night,’ she told the Sunday Mirror. ‘Claire was pulled off the stage and disappeared. She got whisked away.
‘She has been labelled a fantasist in a bid to cover up what happened. She would have been alive today if they had listened to her.’
Over the years, Top of the Pops hosted scores of international stars, who were invited to perform alongside a throng of adoring teenagers chosen for their good looks, fashionable skimpy outfits and dancing skills.
Most of those musicians have long since retired, but a handful are still performing around the world.
Miss McAlpine’s mother tried to raise the alarm at the time, reporting some of the alleged abuse to the BBC after the teenager chronicled it in her diary. In a series of entries, she claimed that a BBC DJ had taken her to his house for the night and given her a pill which made her feel like she was ‘floating in a cloud’. Another had also invited her back to his ‘sumptuously furnished’ residence, she said.
The 15-year old also spoke of her dreams of marrying a celebrity, and her heartbreak at not being ‘really loved’.
In her last entry, in March 1971, she said: ‘I am just a dreamer and none of my dreams will ever come true…
‘I sit and dream for hours about me as a fairy godmother or me as a star or me as Sinatra’s wife. But it is all dreams. I can’t face reality, ordinary everyday life.’
A month later, Miss McAlpine took an overdose of sleeping tablets. The BBC claims that it investigated matters at the time by interviewing Blackburn, one of the DJs accused of molesting her.
The senior judge who led the BBC inquiry into a series of allegations relating to Top of the Pops concluded that her claim against Blackburn was ‘probably an invention’. And in
‘He is still around today’
yesterday’s Mail retired Lord Justice Sir Brian Neill QC rejected the veteran DJ’s claims that he was never questioned over the allegations.
Sir Brian, 92, said he stood by his 1972 report, adding that it was ‘quite inconceivable’ that he had not questioned him.
But Blackburn has denied that the interviews ever took place, and has now been sacked over this, despite his denial of any wrongdoing.