'I tried to push him away': Sex attack victim describes how she was assaulted by Stuart Hall while he filmed 'It's a Knockout'

One of broadcaster Stuart Hall's victims described how she was attacked whilst he was filming It’s a Knockout for the BBC. The woman told ITV News that she had been chosen to be a cheerleader on the programme.

“I was just 17 at the time and I worked in a hotel and the town where I lived was having It’s A Knockout filmed there and I went along to the auditions to see if I could take part in it. I was chosen to be a cheerleader. We had afternoon tea in the town and about early evening, because I worked in a hotel, I had a staffroom and I met him in the hotel where I worked,” she said.

“I was just walking through the lobby and up the main stairs and I was just about to turn the corner into the doorway that led to the staffroom and as I was walking up the stairs, I got to the top and I heard this voice behind me and it was him. And he started talking to me. And obviously if you work in a hotel you talk to the residents. And he then grabbed hold of me and he started kissing me as I went to go through to touch the door-handle. He pushed me up against the wall and he tried to force himself onto me.”

She added: “I struggled, I tried to push him away and it was only the fact that there was someone walking along the corridor and the floors creaked that he stopped and I managed to get away.”

She said she had not told anyone for 40 years. “After it happened I did go off the rails a bit when it came to relationships and it has made me very cold towards people in general. I don’t let people into my life easily and I don’t make friends easily because of it. It’s as if I don’t want to say too much in case people then try to force me into things I don’t want to do. I’m very much a person who will live in their own world, so to speak.”