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Predatory former BBC presenter Stuart Hall is to be stripped of his Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the Queen, the Standard revealed. |
The action follows his conviction for a series of sex assaults on girls.
Hall, 83, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, admitted 14 counts against girls aged from nine to 17 between 1967 and 1985 in June. He was sentenced to 15 months — which was later doubled by the Court of Appeal.
The former It’s a Knockout presenter was awarded an OBE in the 2012 New Year’s Honours for services to broadcasting and charity.
Five months later the first allegations that he had groomed a schoolgirl were made, prompting an investigation.
The Queen agreed for the honour to be stripped from Hall after it was passed to her by the prime minister, following a recommendation from the honours forfeiture committee.
Under official rules, honours can be taken away from people who have “done something to damage the honours system’s reputation”.
The Queen must lend her official seal of approval to the forfeiture, which acts as the formal removal of their name from the order of the British empire.
The forfeiture committee, which sits as an independent arm of the Cabinet Office, ordinarily recommends that a commendation should be revoked during a meeting between its chair, the civil service head Sir Bob Kerslake, and the independent chair of the relevant board.
In the case of Hall, it would have fallen to Kerslake and Sir Vernon Ellis, the British council chair who heads the committee’s arts and media board, to recommend whether his OBE should be scrapped.
Alan Collins, a solicitor who is representing 18 alleged victims of Hall, said the forfeiture was a recognition that the broadcaster had finally been exposed as a sexual predator. However, he said the honours awarded to both Hall and Jimmy Savile, who was granted a knighthood in 1990, had “teflon-coated” the abusers and heaped more misery on their victims.
“There’s a broader question to be asked which is what enquiries are being made of these people when they are recommended for honours,” he said.
“The civil service had concerns about Savile being recommended for a knighthood but somehow these people seem to creep through the system and get awards and its very demeaning. It’s demeaning not just for the victims but for how the whole honours system works.
“Hall and Savile were able to get themselves teflon-coated and had it not been for one brave victim coming forward then we would never have known about all of this.”
In 2012, the former RBS boss Fred Goodwin was made to forfeit his knighthood for his role in the banking crisis.
Last year, the Chetham’s School of Music director Michael Brewer had his OBE revoked following his conviction for sexually abusing a pupil. In 2008, the Queen annulled the knighthood awarded to the Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, in 1994.