Tim Westwood

[menaredis]

Being accused of abusing his power over a number of years against black women.

He was an old man compared the the ages of some the accusers.

Apparently rumours have circulated for some time but this has come out due to a documentary.

No doubt there will be others that also allege this wrongdoing.

Disappointed to see yet another story of a man with a bit of power using it for his own gain.

I wasn't surprised by this news, I can recall women discussing his sleazy behaviour on Mumnset years ago.

I think I‘M most surprised by his age - 64! I always presumed he was younger.

I've never liked him. He used black culture to be cool, completely different from David Roddigan. David R doesn't do fake shit accents and you can see it's appreciation of the music rather than using it to be cool.

I remember being 14/15 and Wiley was on the show. He had just dropped treddin on thin ice. Eski music was dropping, pirate radio stations and grime was emerging. It was great for english black music, and Tim Westwood was soooo sneary and condescending. I was suprised to hear him championing grime a few years later. The prick.

I worked in the music industry and knew him in the 90s up until about 2010. EVERYONE knew he liked ‘just legal’ girls - 17, 18 yes - and didn’t ‘do’ serious relationships, just one girl after another for sex. People just laughed it off or turned a blind eye.

Me and other female colleagues didn’t like working with him. He was generally creepy, untrustworthy and inappropriate. Just a very weird, shady guy. None of our male colleagues or bosses gave a hoot.

A lot of men in the industry and at the BBC are complicit. It was unthinkable that a woman would be believed if she raised something like this against someone of his stature in those days. Especially a teenage black girl, but any woman to be honest. Men sucked up to him because of his position in the industry - from old white corporate guys to young black guys trying to get on in the industry. Nobody gave a fuck about women.

Shame he’s retirement age now anyway and has had his glorious career and decades of predatory behaviour before he was found out.

Ali G, of course, was a parody of the ridiculous Mr Westwood. Boyakasha!

Why does the BBC employ people like him and Savile?

I hope that the documentary leads to some of the women going to the police so justice is served. By realising they were by no means the only victim I hope this leads to them feeling able to come forward.

I predict more women/girls will come forward. He’s been operating for a long time.

I hadn't heard of him (bit before my time and I'm not into rap / hip-hop). Very disheartening to hear of yet another man in the media allegedly abusing his powerful position.

Hopefully there will be a full investigation.

I recall hearing allegations years ago. Not at all surprised about this.

Once again there will have been a culture of silence at the BBC.

The BBC employed Westwood as a specialist DJ because he was genuinely knowledgeable & enthusiastic about hip-hop music at a time when it was an emerging genre in the U.K.

Rightly or wrongly, they also probably felt they could trust him, as a middle class bishop’s son, not to drop them in the shit and to understand where ‘the line’ was drawn in terms of what could and what could not be said on air. I assume he speaks and conducts himself quite differently when he is not acting up to his public persona.

You know what I hate about this kind of stuff... he hasn't even been in a trial for it yet. Yet you're all acting like he's guilty already... trial by media.

Hope you're never on a jury.

How come it's not cultural appropriation when a privately educated white boy from Norfolk puts on a fake accent to make a whole career out of black music, but when a Geordie girl from a council estate has a podcast about "R&B" she gets crucified and cancelled?

I work in that industry and it's well known he's a dick as someone said above-- personally I think it looks a bit desperate in your 60's to be 'down with the kids' and talking like a gangsta , when you are the middle/upper class son of a Bishop.

He strikes me as creepy. Not even a little bit surprised

Who knew there were so many Tim Westwood defenders in the world, let alone on Mumsnet.

Where?

Or do you mean posters like me who acknowledge that they know him for his work, have known him since the 90s, and aren't surprised by these allegations?

I haven't seen anyone excuse his actions. Or even try to minimise them!

Sadly not surprised.

This has been common knowledge within the black diaspora for many years.

He would DJ at under 18 club nights over 20 years ago and it was widely known. So it's not a shock in the slightest.

This is definitely the tip of the iceberg. He should be held accountable and so should the DJs, execs, promoter's who booked him in the full knowledge that this was taking place.

No, it's believing women when they tell you they've been sexually assaulted.

Really don't understand why Cheryl Cole keeps being mentioned. She's not a very nice person and bottled someone in a racist attack. Not really the person you want to be using as an example.

Are you sure it's not the other way around?

I think this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the BBC. Most of them were at it back in the day and they were untouchable for years. And even the ones that weren't preying on young girls wouldn't jeopardise their place on the BBC gravy train by doing anything about it.

The sooner the license fee abolished and the BBC shut down, the better.

There’s been talk about him for a long time, I remember being a teenager in London and hearing stories. I’m glad it’s coming to light now and I imagine a lot more will start to emerge. He always came across as completely contrived, why was a white man from Norfolk ever held up as the face of hip hop culture? Another predator leveraging their power to abuse.

Those poor girls. It’s taken incredible for them to come forward as they have. I hope they’re fully supported.

Without him they'd be no Ali G.

He is a known dirty old fecker.

Posh boy pretending to be from the hood. Entitled little twerp.