Two women have come forward to accuse Sir Clement Freud, grandson of Sigmund, MP, broadcaster, dogfood spokesman, and children’s author of sexually abusing them when they were children, and of rape.
Sylvia Woosley says that Freud began molesting her when she was ten, and after his family effectively adopted her when she was fourteen he abused her frequently until she was able to escape from the family five years later. Woolsley said that she confronted Freud about his actions later, when he was an MP, and he said he did it “Because I loved you. You were a very sensual little girl.”
The other accuser says he began to assault her when she was 13 and that he tried to sexually assault her friends as well, and that when she was 18, he came to her home and “brutally and perfunctorily” raped her.
News coverage of the revelations also links Freud to the disappearance of three-year-old Madeline McCann, who vanished while on a 2007 family holiday in Portugal, shortly after her family befriended Freud, who had a villa nearbly.
Freud died in 2009. His widow, Jill Freud, has accepted the accusations and apologised to Freud’s victims, saying she is “deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for what has happened to these women”.
The revelations are the most recent in a wave of news about “historic sexual abuse” by some of the most senior members of the UK establishment, including many politicians, entertainers, and business magnates, seemingly with the complicity of the police and intelligence services. As these crimes have come to light, precipitated by statements by MP Tom Watson, who spoke under protection of Parliamentary privilege to accuse some of Britain’s most powerful men of being serial rapists and conspirators in sexual abuse and the trafficking of children, more adult abuse survivors have come forward with fresh accusations.
She told the programme she first met Freud, known as Clay, when he was aged 24 and worked at a 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.”
She said he frequently molested her during the five years she lived with Freud and his wife in London, where she had been sent to live at 14 years old following the breakdown of her mother’s marriage.
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.”
Sir Clement Freud accused of abusing two girls
[BBC]