Yvette Fielding has questioned the BBC after claiming disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her during her time as host of Blue Peter.
The 55-year-old presenter joined the BBC’s long-running TV show when she was a teenager in 1987 and left five years later, before hosting a string of BBC programmes including The Heaven And Earth Show, The General and City Hospital.
In an interview with the Sun newspaper, Fielding has claimed she was left alone in a TV studio with Harris, who used the opportunity to sexually assault her.
Harris was a family favourite for decades before being convicted of a string of indecent assaults in June 2014. He died of neck cancer and old age in May last year, aged 93.
Speaking about the incident, Fielding told the Sun: “It was very confusing and shocking — just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking ‘I don’t know what to do’.
“Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and you left me alone in the studio with him.
“That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19.
“I think a lot of them did know.”
Fielding also recalled an incident with Jimmy Savile, who is now believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders but managed to conceal his crimes until after his death.
Savile died aged 84 in October 2011 and an ITV documentary a year after his death revealed the story of his abuse.
“He took my hand and started stroking it. ‘Look into my eyes’, he said, ‘And tell me what you’re thinking’,” she told the Sun.
“He was grotesque.
“I just don’t understand why the BBC allowed him to get away with that for as long as he did.”
Savile worked for much of his career at the BBC presenting programmes including Top Of The Pops and Jim’ll Fix It.
Fielding also told the Sun there used to be a culture of cover-up in the TV industry.
The BBC has been approached for comment.