Late broadcaster and MP Sir Clement Freud accused of abusing young girls

The late broadcaster and MP Sir Clement Freud has been accused of abusing two girls between the late 1940s and 1970s.

Sylvia Woosley, who first met Freud when she was 10 and later went to live with him when her mother’s marriage broke down, claims in an ITV Exposure documentary that he molested her over several years.

A second woman, who wants to remain anonymous, alleged that the Liberal politician also abused her as a child and raped her when she was 18.

In a statement released in response to the programme, his widow Jill Freud, 89, said she was “deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for what has happened to these women”.

In the programme, due to be broadcast on Wednesday, Ms Woosley, now in her late 70s, said: “I just want to clear things up before I die…I want to die clean.

“Having been so hard on myself, trying to destroy myself so many times, you can’t bury the truth forever, it needs to be heard.

“I don’t want to take this to my tomb. I would like to just return to the child I was before I was molested physically, before I was introduced to that side of life too early.”

She told the programme she first met Freud, known as Clay, when he was aged 24 and worked at the Martinez hotel in Cannes in the late 1940s. She was 10 and her family was living in the south of France.

Ms Woosley claims that he kissed her on the mouth during a bus trip. She said: “I was disgusted and helpless. I just didn’t react in any way because I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”

From the age of 14, when she lived with Freud and his wife in London for five years, she claims that he frequently molested her, even “playfully” touching her breast in front of his wife, although she believes Mrs Freud had no knowledge of the abuse.

Later, aged in her early 40s, Ms Woosley said she confronted Freud at the House of Commons and asked why he had abused her. She says he replied: “Because I loved you. You were a very sensual little girl.”

The second woman said that she first met Freud in 1971 at her family home as a “lonely, neglected and socially isolated” 11-year-old.

Then a celebrity, he would call her on the phone and tell her she was special and intelligent, and was treated as a surrogate father figure by her parents, she said.

Two years later, after he was elected as an MP, he would take her on trips to Parliament and his home, and would kiss her on the mouth and hug her.

She said: “I felt sick but grateful at the same time. Frightened and unable to move or react in any way.”

When she was 14, she claims Freud asked her and another friend of the same age: “Would you like to get naked and have some fun?”

Four years later, in June 1978, when she was 18, the woman alleges that he came over to her parents’ flat and “brutally and perfunctorily” raped her.

She told the broadcaster: “I live in constant terror that I’ll be found out, exposed. I’ve already suffered across nearly 40 years. It’s not simply to be labelled as depression or mental illness, this is disempowerment, self-destructiveness and grief. This is what real suffering looks like.”

Writer, broadcaster and politician Freud, who died at his desk aged 84 in 2009, first became a household name in the 1960s and 70s in Minced Morsels dog food adverts.

A celebrated food, sport and comment print journalist, he also enjoyed a long career as a television and radio personality, regularly contributing to Radio 4’s Just A Minute for 30 years and featuring on shows including Have I Got News For You.

ITV said two of Freud’s children had viewed the documentary before broadcast on their mother’s behalf.

Mrs Freud said: “This is a very sad day for me. I was married to Clement for 58 years and loved him dearly. I am shocked, deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for what has happened to these women. I sincerely hope they will now have some peace.”

A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats said: “These allegations are horrific. We are desperately sorry to learn that lives have been ruined by a man whose public face was so greatly at odds to his true character. It has clearly taken a lot of courage for these women to speak out, after a lifetime of having to hide it.

“This is the latest in a terrifying line of cases where high profile figures have systematically used their status, celebrity and power, to abuse and to rape.

“Clement Freud was a senior figure in the Liberals, our party’s predecessor, and we are deeply shocked and horrified by this news. Our party was never aware of what happened, and our hearts go out to the women who were affected.”

Exposure: Abused and Betrayed – A Life Sentence will be broadcast on ITV at 11:05pm on Wednesday.

Evidence of alleged victims

These are details of the claims made against Sir Clement Freud in the ITV Exposure documentary by Sylvia Woosley and a second alleged victim who wishes to remain anonymous.

Sylvia Woosley says that she first met Freud, known as Clay, when he was aged 24 and worked at the Martinez hotel in Cannes in the late 1940s. She was 10 and her family was living in the south of France.

“He immediately took a liking to me,” she told the broadcaster. “My mother was thrilled, Clay Freud is paying attention to her daughter. I was overcome by his warmth, by his love, by his caring, by his generosity. I felt there was a sense of belonging. I felt here’s someone who cares for me.”

He would take her on bus trips and to the beach, and bought her clothes and presents, and she said she was “desperate for a father’s love”. But one day he kissed her on the mouth on a bus trip, which she said left her “disgusted and helpless”.

In 1952 aged 14, she went to live with Freud and his wife Jill in London when her mother’s marriage broke down, and claims that he frequently abused her.

Describing how she felt if she heard him walking towards her bedroom, she said: “It was a terrible feeling. That’s all I can say, it was just a terrible feeling. Because I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt so trapped, I couldn’t tell anybody, I couldn’t do anything.”

Her friend Sonia Markham wrote in her diary in November 1956 that Sylvia, then 18, had asked her to stay over because “she’s scared Clay will try and force himself on her”.

The following year she confided in the Freud family nanny Barbara that he had touched her sexually but not that it had happened underage, and moved out.

She claims that Freud then wrote to her work place that it was “hardly fair, decent, or honourable” to tell the nanny that the reason for her leaving had been because he was “in love” with her.

“Of course I loved you, as did Jill, and as would anyone who has known and looked after a child for as long as we have known you,” he wrote. “If you construe every sign of affection – and there were many – as having an unhealthy sexual motive, then you are both wrong, and in spreading this to other people, so ungrateful and unfair that you have succeeded in turning genuine affection into sour and bitter feelings of contempt and disgust.”

Her mother insisted that she speak to Jill on the phone and admit to lying, which she did, but said she was left “totally and utterly destroyed”. She believes Mrs Freud knew nothing about the abuse.

Ms Woosley added: “It destroyed something in me that broke, and I suppose it’s affected my behaviour all my life. I’ve been married twice, my relationship with men, my lack of trust, my lack of self-confidence, my self-destruction.”

Encouraging other alleged victims to come forward, she said: “I am doing it for the girl in me that wants to be recognised for having told the truth, and for any others that haven’t got quite the courage that would like to, well go ahead and do it. Stand up and speak. Find your voices. There’s no point in keeping it as long as I have, because even at my age at the end it’s come out. You can’t bury the truth.”

The second woman said that she first met Freud in 1971 at her family home as a “lonely, neglected and socially isolated” 11-year-old girl.

She told the broadcaster: “When the TV celebrity Clement Freud was first introduced to me at the family flat, he came bearing presents and my mother was impressed enough to fawn over his every move.

“For a lonely, neglected and socially isolated young girl, attention from Freud proved very seductive. From the age of 11 onwards he would call me on the phone. He would tell me that I was a special child with a rare, high intelligence. He was treated and talked about like a surrogate father figure for me by both my parents.”

Two years later, after he was elected as an MP, he would take her on trips to Parliament and his home, and would kiss her on the mouth and hug her.

When she was 14, she and another friend of the same age were invited to his flat when he said he would cook for them. While there, she claims he tried to lock them in the basement bedroom, and said something along the lines of “would you like to get naked and have some fun?” Her friend told him to “get lost”, and he laughed it off.

Four years later in June 1978, when she was 18, the woman claims he came over to her parents’ flat and raped her.

She said: “He had a bath, cooked for me and then began making soft sexual advances to me at the dinner table. I consistently said no but he just kept pushing and cajoling me, with leering and witty put downs about his being good at this etc….he came down on me and I froze up with terror.

“I kept saying I did not want him to continue forcing me, but was terrified that he would become violent.”

She claims he then “brutally and perfunctorily” raped her on her parents’ bed.

She spoke to one friend that night, telling her she did not want him there, and confided in another soon afterwards about what had happened.

The woman also told her mother, who, having already spoken to Freud, put it down to “a bad sexual experience”, she said.

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