Freddie Starr vanishes... leaving £1m bill for failed child sex libel case
Comic accused of abusing girl on TV show sells up to move ‘abroad’
FREDDIE STARR, the comedian accused of abusing a teenage fan in Jimmy Savile’s dressing room, is believed to have fled the country owing £1million in legal fees.
Starr faced financial ruin after losing a High Court case against 57year-old Karin Ward, who said that he had shoved his hand up her skirt when she was 15, before callously dismissing her as a ‘***less wonder’.
But instead of paying her £1million legal bill, as ordered by the judge, it appears that Starr has liquidated his assets and has moved abroad. Friends of the entertainer believe that he has relocated to Spain. He previously lived in Benalmádena on the Costa del Sol.
Starr, 72, has not been seen for about two months, since selling his mansion in Studley, Warwickshire, for £695,000 – around £50,000 less than he paid for it seven years ago.
The architect of his own downfall, he had sued Ms Ward for libel after she accused him of abusing her in while visiting the set of Savile’s Clunk Click show in 1974. Ms Ward had been sexually abused by serial paedophile Jimmy Savile.
However, Mr Justice Nicol ruled that she had told the truth and dismissed the case last July. Starr was ordered to pay her lawyer’s fees as well as court costs.
His disappearance was only discovered last month after he had failed to make the first payment of £334,000 and court officials tried to serve a statutory demand order to his home.
Dean Dunham, Starr’s lawyer, told The Mail on Sunday that he has not spoken to his client since the trial in June. ‘I’ve not heard from him since the case ended. I have no instructions from him, so don’t know where he is. Eventually I will hear from him, I have no doubt.’
According to one friend, Starr had been devastated to lose the legal fight and he felt there was nothing left for him in Britain. He had also separated from his young wife Sophie, 33, amid claims, which he denied, that he head-butted her 15year-old stepson.
‘He wants a fresh start abroad after a year of hell,’ the friend said.
Starr complained that losing the case had destroyed his reputation, as it essentially labelled him a paedophile. He was investigated by Operation Yewtree detectives after Ms Ward made the allegation in 2012 on the BBC and ITV, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge him. In an exclusive inter- view with the MoS after her court victory, she said that she never called Starr a paedophile and never named him. He had been named by others in the course of media coverage.
On the night in question, she was a starstruck teenager wanting Starr’s signature. But, Ms Ward says, she was repulsed by his odour.
Starr, she recalls, stank horribly of alcohol, halitosis, cologne and sweat. ‘It reminded me of my stepfather, who had sexually abused me from the age of four,’ she said.
‘He came up behind me and thrust his hand up my skirt. It wasn’t a bottom pinch or a slap. It was known back then as a ‘goose’, when a man would put his hand under a girl’s buttocks and give it a squeeze.
‘He would reach for her breasts at the same time and say “honk honk”. It was supposed to be funny. He didn’t do anything wrong. I am not objecting to the fact that he goosed me. That is fine. I couldn’t number the amount of men who have done that to me.’
But she was humiliated when he called her a ‘***less wonder’ and everyone in the room burst into laughter. ‘It was as if I had been judged and found wanting. I carried that insulting phrase with me all my life.’
Starr came to fame as a singer in the 1970s through the talent show Opportunity Knocks. But it was his madcap comic talent that made him a star, and he became one of the most popular entertainers in the country, with his own weekly variety show.
Recent years have been tough though – ill health (he suffers from a debilitating lung disease and needs a wheelchair and a carer), four failed marriages and a shift in comedy styles, have taken their toll. He has not had a manager in years and the MoS could not find any celebrity friends who have remained in contact with him.
Although Starr denied the assault, pointing to the fact that the CPS decided not to prosecute and insisting it was not in his ‘moral compass’ to do such a thing, he admitted having a voracious sexual appetite in 1974 and described slapping a girl’s bottom in the 1970s as ‘acceptable’ .
He also admitted making jokes about women’s breasts, saying ‘every man does it’, but claimed his humour was ‘the opposite of humiliation’. Ms Ward’s solicitor, Helen Morris insists that her firm will press Starr for the money owed and criticised both the BBC and ITV for not fully supporting Ms Ward in her legal battle.
She said: ‘Having put Karin through the ordeal of defending a libel action, it is appalling that Freddie Starr has now breached the court’s order and not paid her legal fees.
‘We will be pursuing [him] but also seeking to ensure that victims are never left in a position where powerful broadcasters are able to use their testimony but then hang these truthful sources out to dry when they are sued.’