John Peel's record collection online

How old was she at the time?

I think she was in her twenties, but that does not stop it being predatory. She is now dead so I can't ask for more detail, but it did involve him groping and chasing her round his office.

Of course Peel is dead too now, and I can't ask him about it. Which is a shame because I have, until I read about the concerns here, had an enormous amount of respect for the man.
I still have enormous respect for his music broadcasts, though now slightly jaded.

I wonder how many other people in those sorts of positions will be exposed by probing into the past. I can think of many music stars that have admitted to excess with fans. It used to be routine to brag about it, indeed it still is in some cases. I had never thought of Peel as a predator though, seems very odd when you listen to the man for more than 30 years, admitting tons of stuff on air that I would be uncomfortable with (the relationship with his kids and some musicians for example) that he had a darker side.

Edited.

Of course Peel is dead too now, and I can't ask him about it. Which is a shame because I have, until I read about the concerns here, had an enormous amount of respect for the man.
I still have enormous respect for his music broadcasts, though now slightly jaded.

I wonder how many other people in those sorts of positions will be exposed by probing into the past. I can think of many music stars that have admitted to excess with fans. It used to be routine to brag about it, indeed it still is in some cases. I had never thought of Peel as a predator though, seems very odd when you listen to the man for more than 30 years, admitting tons of stuff on air that I would be uncomfortable with (the relationship with his kids and some musicians for example) that he had a darker side.

Very often victims do not speak until after the death of their abuser. Very often, libel laws keep stories under wraps until after death.

Sexual offenders come in all sizes. Saville looked like a nonce and so it is easy to imagine him as one. As I said above, most successful abusers are charming normal looking people. I have been very surprised by a number of people who have turned out to be offenders. A popular teacher was an abuser. A detested teacher who everyone used to assume was a nonce, turned out not to be.

Just because you like someone does not make them less likely to be a sexual predator and child abuser.

Don't know if that puts me up there with Peel and Savile, but I guess it's in the ball park.

There doesn't appear to be much on Peel, so I don't think you or he were in the same league as Savile.

For years, Julie 'Bullshit' Burchill referred to John Peel as 'that paedophile' because of a story he told about getting sucked off by a girl whilst on air. The girl turned out to be fifteen.

I couldn't say if Peel was predatory or not - as he said, he wasn't asking for I.D. - but he didn't seem like that to me.

What I'm saying is, I've never I.D.'d anyone who offered to suck me off either. I was just fucking grateful to be honest.

It's hard for us to make a judgement on stars of that era because everyone was shagging, drunk and probably on drugs. Girls were throwing themselves at them and they didn't struggle.

The problem with Jimmy Savile is that he targeted the vulnerable, orphans and people in hospitals. I'm sure he screwed hundreds of women who were consenting adults, but it's his unhealthy tastes for children that set him apart from John Peel (in my opinion)

It really hurts to learn this about his past. For all that most of it was public domain, I didn't know it. Although i feel the urge to make excuses, i think i agree with Clive that that's not right. Can we hang onto and hold separate the good things though?

His late-night show on radio 1 meant a lot to me, and his death and it's end is a loss i still feel and mourn. (Also, the cancellation of Mixing It on radio 3 little more than a year after i'd discovered it. My life has had a lot less music in it since.) One of my most treasured possessions is a tape of a PJ Harvey concert live from the Improv theatre that he hosted on radio 1 - it happened to be his 60th. The tape changes over half-way through the intro of PJ's stunning 'rid of me' (which Peel mis-announces as 'legs') and ends before the Echo & the Bunny Men set which followed. Filling between the sets, Peel gets the record player stuck in reverse, and plays a Fall track call 'folding money' that still hops into my head every time i use a cash machine. His incompetence was endearing because it was so easy to feel his broad deep love of music and life.

Sexually, was he late to the game? Was his behaviour in america the coincidence of late immaturity with status and a glut of opportunity? I remember him relating advice he'd once been given by his brother: "The thing you have to remember about sex, John, is girls like it too." I don't know what it meant to him, but to me it meant a lot.

I had a fairly isolated rural childhood, in a fairly feminist household, so between that and mainstream culture i learned a faith in the rightness of women and an understanding that sex was something men wanted from women, and to get it you'd either trade commitment (which i couldn't honestly do) or deceive and manipulate (not me either). The idea that women would want to explore too was a revelation to me (though i've not made *that *much of it). The point is, to me, that advice was the opposite of predatory.

There probably are cases where an under-aged participant in sexual contact is not a vicitim, but has the maturity, capacity, knowledge and power to have made their own decision. But identifying those cases is not a judgement that can be left to either of the participants at the time -- because of all the cases where that standard isn't met and the participants will judge wrongly. So we have a hard but arbitrary cut-off line and the law gives younger people have less liberty and more protection, while older victims are guarded by weaker rules.

Does the British teenager he got pregnant consider herself his victim, or someone who made her own (bad) choices? She doesn't seem to say, but given that she's coming forwards now, perhaps it's more the former. In any case, to allow special pleading even with hind-sight would erode the sharp division of the law.

Given my shallow experience i'm the last one who should be trying to unravel the complexities of power and desire that surround sex. I think there is still a lot of John Peel that i'll hold precious, but i feel a new loss too. Sorry for the rambling and all the 'but's .

The BBC has said it will reconsider naming part of its new London headquarters after the late DJ John Peel, if a claim he made a 15-year-old pregnant is proved.
Friday's Daily Mail claimed that Peel had unprotected sex with Jane Nevin when she was 15.
Nevin became pregnant after a brief affair with the DJ but did not tell him and had an abortion, according to the Mail. About 30 years later she wrote to Peel about their encounters and he wrote back expressing his relief that she was not writing to tell him he had a secret child.
Nevin told the Daily Mail she had come forward after reading the stories about alleged sexual abuse of underage girls by Jimmy Savile in the past few days.
A BBC spokesman said: "Clearly, in the event of proven allegations of sexual abuse the BBC would re-consider its decision on the naming of part of our new building."
Earlier this year the corporation announced that a section of the newly refurbished BBC Broadcasting House in central London would be called the John Peel Wing in tribute to the former Radio 1 presenter, who died in 2004.
At the time then director general Mark Thompson described Peel as a "great ambassador" for the corporation.
However, since the ITV1 Exposure documentary last week aired claims of sexual abuse of underage girls by Jimmy Savile in the 1970s and 1980s, the conduct of other Radio 1 DJs has come under scrutiny.
Peel, who was the victim of sexual abuse at school, openly joked he "didn't ask for ID" when young women wanted to sleep with him.
The part of the newly redeveloped Broadcasting House that the BBC is set to name after Peel was known as the Egton Wing and it houses the entrance to Radio 1.
BBC staff are still being moved into the new building. Some are understood to be concerned that naming part of Broadcasting House after Peel might now prove awkward and embarrassing for the corporation.

The Guardian.

Much of what has been posted above falls in the "Jimmy Saville looked like a nonce and I never liked him and he is evil: I liked John Peel and so there must be an excuse."

A friend once told me that at his boarding prep school an unpopular boy made an accusation against a very popular master. The other boys hounded him out of the school with bullying and intimidation. Years later he heard that the teacher had been imprisoned for abuse of a number of children over the subsequent years. He said that the guilt of what he and the other boys had done to the kid who had simply been a victim of abuse haunted him forever.

Being nice or being popular or cool or having good taste in music is not a reason to seek to absolve someone from an awful offence.

Paul Gambachini is another well known nonce, loves his rentboys too

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what was the legal age of consent in texas in the 1960's ?
he married a very young girl legally over there 14 or 15 which as said was legal

you can't paint jimmy saville and john peel with the same brush saville was a predator
peel was a loving family man who had a couple of fumbles as a kid

of course i am very biased ... john peel used to touch me most nights as a kid aged between 14 and 21

come on clive i bet you were a rascal as a kid ... a young lothario a plucker of cherries

Peel acted in a predatory manner with my mother.

Thanks for sharing James. For me he now stands as still an inspirational DJ but also for at least part of his life a horrible exploiter of young women. And i fear i misunderstood his attitude to sex.

Just an experiment, but I might be able to share some John Peel shows, this one is from 1975
https://copy.com/DdXdKv91l43Y

If you like that and click this link (which is where you can get 20 gig of free online storage)
I get 5 gig for everyone that signs up
https://copy.com?r=qkXueK
I might get enough space to put my entire collection online. About 60 shows from 1975 to 2004, and a load of sessions

Bit of a dredge, twitter has been busyish with #keepitpeel stuff today as it's that day each year he'd be remembered. Am I right to think in previous years 6music were all over this too?

I just listened thru his Fabriclive compilation which is a damn good selection of tunes as ever.