LONDON: Dave Lee Travis, a leading BBC radio DJ in the 1970s and 1980s whose shows once delighted Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, escaped jail yesterday despite being convicted of a “nasty” indecent assault on a television researcher.
Travis was the latest ageing British celebrity to be convicted of sex crimes in the wake of revelations that the late Jimmy Savile, one of the BBC’s top TV presenters, had sexually abused hundreds of victims over decades.
The 69-year-old Travis, who had been found guilty on Tuesday, was told by the judge that the offence warranted three months in prison, but that the sentence would be suspended in consideration of Travis’s poor health and the impact of the conviction on his job prospects, among other factors “It was a nasty thing to do but it was more than that. It was an intentional and unpleasant sexual assault,” said Judge Anthony Leonard. “You took advantage of a young woman in a vulnerable position whose job it was to look after you that day.”
Reuters
