In May 2012, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist and regular columnist for The Independent, received an anonymous three-page letter alleging that Hall had groomed and sexually abused the writer while she was a schoolgirl in the 1970s. The writer stated that she had been motivated to disclose her experiences by the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and by her anger at Hall's appointment as an OBE in the 2012 New Year Honours. Alibhai-Brown passed the letter to Ealing police, who in turn sent it on to Lancashire Constabulary, who then began an investigation.

On 5 December 2012, police arrested Hall and charged him with three historic counts of indecent assault, involving a 16- or 17-year-old girl in 1974, a 9-year-old girl in 1983, and a 13-year-old girl in 1984. Released on bail, he initially denied any wrongdoing, stating through his solicitor that he was "innocent of these charges". When he appeared at Preston Magistrates Court on 7 January 2013, he pleaded not guilty to all three charges. The prosecutor argued that the issues concerned were serious enough that Hall should stand trial at Crown Court, to which the defence did not object. He was released on bail on condition that he remained resident at his home address and had no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17.

Media coverage of the case led to more women coming forward to state that they had also been sexually abused by Hall. On 22 January 2013, he was charged with raping a 22-year-old woman in 1976 and indecently assaulting 10 more girls, then aged from 9 to 17 years old, between 1967 and 1986. Speaking to reporters after an appearance at Preston Magistrates Court on 7 February 2013, Hall again denied any wrongdoing, calling the charges "pernicious, callous, cruel and, above all, spurious".

At a pre-trial hearing at Preston Crown Court on 16 April 2013, Hall pleaded guilty to 14 charges of indecent assault involving 13 girls aged between 9 and 17. Two of the offences related to indecent penetration, and all but four of the offences took place between 1972 and 1982, during the time Hall was at the height of his fame with It's a Knockout. Hall was released on bail pending sentencing on 17 June. Reporting restrictions prevented the media from making the news public until 2 May 2013, when the Crown Prosecution Service elected not to pursue the rape charge or three other indecent assault charges relating to the same complainant, who had decided not to give evidence. Through a statement made by his barrister, Hall issued an "unreserved apology" to his victims.

BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has been sentenced to 15 months in jail for sexually abusing girls.

The jury took less than two hours on Thursday to dismiss Forrest's defence that he had not abducted the girl and went to France with her only reluctantly, believing she would otherwise go alone and could come to serious, self-inflicted harm.

This narrative was expounded in the testimony of his former pupil, now 16, who remains supportive of her former teacher. She sat near Forrest's family for the verdict, weeping when it was announced.

On Friday, Judge Michael Lawson QC jailed the married maths teacher for four and a half years for the sexual activity with a child and one year for child abduction, to run consecutively.

It's so glaring obvious that even radio 4 discussed this yesterday.

One explanation for hall's lenient sentence is that he's old. Then there's the bit about laws changing in the 80's. Sentences for kiddy fiddlers got longer. As his crimes largely predate that apparently its a reason for a shorter sentence?


But this guy who fell in love with ONE girl and was dumb enough to act on it gets the full chance to correct his behaviour in an institution :rollmyfuckingeyes: