In May 2012,
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist and regular columnist for
The Independent, received an anonymous three-page letter alleging that Hall had
groomed and
sexually abused the sender while she was a schoolgirl in the 1970s. The writer stated that she had been motivated to disclose her experiences by the
reports of sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile after his death and by her anger at Hall's appointment as an
OBE in the
2012 New Year Honours. Alibhai-Brown passed the letter to the
Metropolitan Police at
Ealing police station, who in turn sent it on to
Lancashire Constabulary, in whose jurisdiction the alleged offences had occurred. Lancashire Constabulary then began an investigation. On 5 December 2012, police arrested Hall and charged him with three historical counts of
indecent assault, involving a 16- or 17-year-old girl in 1974, a 9-year-old girl in 1983, and a 13-year-old girl in 1984. Released on
bail, Hall initially denied any wrongdoing, issuing a statement through his solicitor that he was "innocent of these charges". When he appeared at
Preston Magistrates' Court on 7 January 2013, he pleaded not guilty to all three charges. The case was committed to
Crown Court for trial. Hall was released on bail on condition that he
remained resident at his home address and had no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17. Media coverage of the case led to more women coming forward to state that Hall had also sexually abused them. On 22 January 2013, Hall was charged with
raping a 22-year-old woman in 1976 and indecently assaulting ten more girls, then aged from 9 to 17 years old, between 1967 and 1986. Speaking to reporters after an appearance at Preston Magistrates Court on 7 February 2013, Hall again denied any wrongdoing, calling the charges "pernicious, callous, cruel and, above all, spurious". On 15 July 2013, Lancashire Constabulary confirmed that five new allegations of rape and
sexual assault had been made against Hall, including the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl. These investigations resulted in a further 16 charges of rape and indecent assault being laid against Hall in October 2013. On 6 November, he appeared in court in relation to the new charges, but did not make any plea. He made a further appearance in court on 29 November; at a preliminary court hearing on 28 February 2014, he pleaded not guilty to raping two young girls. He went on trial at Preston Crown Court on 6 May 2014, where he admitted indecently assaulting a girl under 16 but denied 20 further charges. On 16 May, Hall was found not guilty of 15 charges of rape and four counts of indecent assault but was found guilty on two counts of indecent assault against a 13-year-old girl.
Sentencing At Preston Crown Court on 17 June 2013, Judge Anthony Russell
QC sentenced Hall to 15 months in prison. Later the same day, the
attorney general's office announced that it had received complaints that the sentence was
"unduly lenient". The then shadow attorney general and
Labour MP Emily Thornberry stated that she believed Hall deserved a longer sentence given the age of his victims and the fact that he had publicly denied the offences at first. The attorney general subsequently referred the sentence to the
Court of Appeal for review. On 26 July, Hall's sentence was increased to 30 months. Following his additional conviction for indecent assault in May 2014, Mr Justice Turner sentenced Hall to a further two years and six months in prison, to run consecutively to his existing prison sentence of 30 months. In a later ruling on the case of
Max Clifford, the appeal court compared Clifford's case with Hall's; Clifford had claimed innocence, but did not directly impugn his victims. In contrast, Hall had publicly denounced his victims and accused one of seeking "instant notoriety". A lawyer commented on the Clifford ruling: "Nothing Clifford did resembled the disastrous approach taken by Stuart Hall who, prior to pleading guilty to abusing them as girls, denounced his accusers as gold-diggers and liars." Clifford's actions were deemed merely to show no remorse, and not to justify an increased penalty on appeal, although ruling out a reduction in sentence due to mitigating factors; in contrast Hall's sentence was increased on appeal.
Civil action In July 2013, the media reported that 17 women were preparing to launch
civil claims against Hall and the BBC, on whose premises a number of sexual assaults had allegedly taken place. Lawyers for the women confirmed that several of the claims related to alleged offences that were not part of Hall's criminal prosecution. Following Hall's arrest for child sexual offences,
Land Registry records revealed that on 22 February 2013, he had transferred his home, which he and his wife Hazel had owned jointly since 1981, into his wife's sole name. Although Hall claimed that he was getting his financial affairs in order because of a heart condition that left him at risk of sudden death, lawyers acting for his victims said they would seek a court order to nullify the transfer of the property, worth an estimated £1.2 million, on the basis that he had relinquished ownership to avoid compensation claims.
Release Hall was released from
HM Prison Wymott near
Preston, Lancashire, on 16 December 2015, having served half his sentence. He arrived home in time for Christmas and his birthday on the same day. In a February 2016 interview with
The Sun, Hall criticised his accusers, 'those who impugned' him, for bringing him down and says he hopes for 'fairness'. A woman Hall attacked when she was a teenage girl said, "To me he'll always be the lowest of the low, a vile
paedophile who's ruined so many lives."
BBC response When the news of Hall's guilty plea became public, the BBC immediately terminated his contract and stated: "The BBC is appalled by the disgraceful actions of Stuart Hall and we would like to express our sympathy to his victims." The BBC subsequently decided to launch a separate inquiry headed by a different individual. As a result of Hall's crimes, the BBC no longer uses clips featuring Hall and edits him out of archive footage when they are broadcast on television. The
Dame Janet Smith Review, released 25 February 2016, found that Hall had assaulted 21 female victims at the BBC, the youngest of whom was aged 10, between 1967 and 1991. The report found that some BBC staff members were aware he was bringing underage girls into his dressing room for sex, but his "untouchable" celebrity status stopped them from passing complaints to senior management. ==Personal life and honours==