Disgraced veteran broadcaster Stuart Hall, 83, abused his celebrity status to indecently assault 13 young girls, according to a judge who jailed him for 15 months.
Sentencing him at Preston Crown Court on Monday, Judge Anthony Russell QC said the public now knew there was “a darker side” to Hall.
The length of the jail term, though, was criticised as “unduly lenient” by shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry, who urged Attorney General Dominic Grieve to look at the matter.
Lawyers for some of the victims welcomed the sentence as a “strong and uncompromising message that abusers would not escape justice no matter how long ago the offences took place”.
The former It’s A Knockout presenter and Radio 5 Live football match summariser pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecent assault in April, but he had earlier made a public pronouncement on the steps of a court, describing all the claims against him as “cruel, pernicious and spurious”.
Judge Russell condemned Hall for choosing not to maintain a “dignified silence” and said that he added to the suffering of his victims by adopting that stance.
“It is clear from the victim statements that I have seen that your brazen attitude when first charged, and the public protests of your innocence, have added to the distress of some if not all of your victims,” he said.
Following his first arrest, Hall told police the complainants were all lying as part of “a vendetta going on against people in the public eye”, said prosecutor Peter Wright QC.
Hall’s barrister, Crispin Aylett QC, said his client had been arrested as a consequence of the investigations into Jimmy Savile.
He referred to the 1,300 complainants in that case and said: “Instead, in the dock today is a frightened and bewildered 83-year-old man answering for the touching no more, no less of all of 13, not 1,300, victims over a quarter of a century ago.”
He said 27 years had passed since the last offence and that Hall had led an “unblemished life” over those years, doing charity work and with the support of his loving family.
He said with the exception of two of the complainants, all the victims who were under 16 had told an adult and none of them had contacted police or sought to take it up with the defendant.
Mr Aylett said he was not criticising “any of those adults” or saying that “standards were different in the 70s”, but he said it did “reflect on the minor nature of the abuse” with the one exception of a 13-year-old girl Hall attacked in a bathroom, which he conceded was a more serious assault.
Judge Russell told Hall: “Several of these cases reveal an abuse of the trust placed in you by the parents of these children but all of them reveal an abuse of power by you because your status gave you an influence and standing which you abused.”
Hall, said to be suffering from poor health, showed no emotion as he was led from the dock to begin his sentence.
He was given sentences ranging from three months to 15 months, all to run concurrently.
Hall was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years and as “a wealthy man”, said the judge, was ordered to pay prosecution costs of £11,522.
The BBC said in a statement: “The BBC is appalled that some of Stuart Hall’s crimes took place in connection with his work at the BBC and offer an unreserved apology to the people he abused.”
One of Hall’s victims said she knew of other young people who were allegedly abused by the broadcaster.
Peter Wanless, chief executive of the child protection charity NSPCC, said: “Hall will be free within months, but the trauma he caused his victims will stay with them a lot longer possibly for the rest of their lives. He has shown total disregard for their feelings, even arrogantly branding them liars.
“Whilst it’s commendable that this case was pursued even after such a long passage of time, the end result is not a great day for justice or for the victims.”