Back in April of this year, the former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood decided to step down from his position at Capital Xtra despite denying all of the allegations against him. The alleged misconduct saw multiple women make claims for inappropriate and predatory sexual behaviour in independent cases where supposedly the DJ abused his position of power in the music industry. Now, although previously representatives of the BBC had claimed that they were never tipped off to the behaviour of the former employee, new evidence has come to light that detail multiple reports made directly to the corporation.
The BBC has revealed that a total of 6 complaints were received about the behaviour of Tim Westwood- one of which was referred to the police and was described by representatives as; “historic” and “found in its files.”. This is since the Director-General of the BBC Tim Davie said at the time; “we have looked at our records and seen no evidence of complaints”.
The representatives of the beloved broadcasting company went on to say; “We are establishing the facts around it”-saying the matter; “did not relate to conduct at the BBC, BBC premises, or conduct towards a BBC staff member, nor was it an accusation of physical assault.”
The 5 other complaints have not been brought to the attention of the police and the BBC at this time declines to share when they were received and whether they came after the statements made by Davie.
The Statement from the BBC read; “As we have said, if people have things that they want to raise with the BBC, then they should do so. People have now done so and we will continue to investigate. We also said that we would dig into what happened in the past. We are doing that with great care. All of that work hasn’t concluded and is ongoing. We said we would take this seriously, and we are. When that work has concluded, we will say more.”
The allegations against Tim Westwood were the product of an investigation by the BBC and the Guardian and also were featured in a BBC documentary titled; Tim Westwood: Abuse of Power.
The victims range in age from late teens to 20s and their stories share a commonality in that often Mr Westwood took advantage of his notoriety in the UK’s rap and RNB scene to carry out the assaults. As stated by one of the alleged victims; “He could make or break your career, if you wanted to get any kind of exposure, you would try to get your demo to him and pray that he would play it. He had absolute power. Within the recording industry and the black community, despite him being a white man, he had absolute power.”
