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Victim who was abused by ex-BBC presenters opens up about horrific ordeal on This Morning

Darren Cunningham spoke out about the awful incidents

Darren Cunningham appeared on This Morning to speak about being sexually abused by two ex-BBC presenters when he was just 14.

The 39-year-old told hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield about his first encounter with the couple.

Tony and Julie Wadsworth were found guilty of indecently assaulting under-age boys and outraging public decency by having sex in woodland.

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Speaking about the first time he met the couple he told the hosts: “I was with some other boys playing in the local park and one boy came down to us and said there’s a lady coming down here with no knickers on.

“So we went and had a look and we rode our bikes and followed this lady down the road.

“There were these trees in the middle of the park and they went into the bushes and we could see them through the trees.

“And they started performing sex acts on each other and they kept looking back to where we were and basically beckoning us into the bushes. We went in and they said we could watch.”

He then explained that Julie wanted to go somewhere more private, so he dropped his bike off and they went to a golf course where Julie and Tony had sex in front of them.

Shortly after Darren explained that the couple offered for him and his friend to join in and they would record it on camera.

Darren went on to say that he didn’t discuss the incidents with anybody until he heard that a couple had been charged with sex offences on boys in the 90s on the news.

He told the hosts that he felt guilty after realising it was the same couple and one of their victims was only 11-years-old.

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He said: “I thought it’s got to be the same people. How many people would be doing that?

“It said on the news that the youngest victim was 11 and I thought if I had told the police or even my mum perhaps I could have stopped it happening.

“I felt a bit of guilt.”

Julie, 60, and Tony, 69, were found guilty of encouraging a string of young boys to take part in sexual activity between 1992 and 1996.

The couple told Warwick Crown Court that they engaged in and watched sex acts in an area of parkland and admitted “young men” were involved.

Julie and Tony have both been jailed for five years following a three-week trial.


Rebecca Carter
Associate Editor (News)