DJ Tim Westwood is a household name in the UK music scene. He has had a successful career as a disc jockey, playing at some of the biggest nightclubs and festivals in the country.
However, there have been multiple allegations of misconduct with women made against him. In 2006, he was accused of sexual assault by an ex-girlfriend. In 2013, he was accused of sexual harassment by two different female employees at his radio station. In both cases, he denied the allegations and no action was taken against him.
Tim Westwood, a British DJ and radio presenter has been involved in several legal cases with women. In 2012, Westwood was found not guilty of assaulting a woman at his home.
The following year, he was cleared of harassing another woman. However, in 2016 he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman after inviting her back to his hotel room.
Over the past few years, DJ Tim Westwood has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. First, there were rumors that he had an affair with BBC Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton.
Then, in March of this year, it was reported that he had groped two women at a party. And now, just last week, it was revealed that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with three separate women over a period of 10 years.
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DJ Tim Westwood accused of sexual misconduct
DJ Tim Westwood is facing multiple accusations of sexual misconduct from women who say he abused his position in the music industry to exploit them.
The 64-year-old is accused of unwanted and predatory sexual behavior and touching, in incidents between 1992 and 2017.
The BBC and The Guardian heard detailed accounts from seven women in a joint investigation into the former BBC Radio 1 DJ.
He strongly denies the allegations.
The DJ was one of the UK’s earliest hip-hop champions, hosting the first nationally broadcast rap show on UK radio since 1994.
The seven women who spoke to the BBC are all black and say they met Westwood through his work. Some accuse the DJ of abusing his power within the music industry.
The women tell their stories in a BBC Three documentary, Tim Westwood: Abuse of Power, which airs on BBC Three at 9pm on Tuesday.
Two of them, who aspired to work in the industry, say they agreed to go to London to meet him and talk music. They accuse the DJ of taking them to a flat and initiating unwanted and unexpected sexual relations. One was 19 years old at the time, while Westwood was 53.
Another woman told the BBC that she met Westwood, then in her 30s, when she was 17 and a member of an R&B group. She says that she was subjected to unwanted oral sex after agreeing to meet him.
Four other young women accuse the DJ of touching her buttocks or breasts while posing for photos with him at different events where he was performing.
The women, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, do not know each other. Some work in the music industry and fear repercussions, as the DJ continues to play a prominent role in an industry long criticized for his treatment of darker-skinned black women.
Allegations about Westwood’s behavior towards young black women have circulated on social media for some time. In 2020, Westwood issued a statement to the Mail Online criticizing the “fabricated allegations” and saying they were false and baseless.
Now, for the first time, following our investigation, women detail his experiences.
When Isabel discovered that Tim Westwood was DJing at her local nightclub, she saw an opportunity for someone influential to hear his music. He was 19 years old and had already been in the studio, appearing on rapper tracks as a vocalist.
Isabel was young when she realized that she could sing. During her strict religious upbringing in the Midlands in the early 2000s, contemporary music was banned at home, but she spent her Sundays singing gospel in church. Secretly, however, she would write her own music and dream of a future as a recording artist.
By 2010, when she was a college student, she was continuing her music career. She knew that a national platform like BBC Radio 1 could take her to the next level. “[Tim Westwood] was the main gatekeeper to get him to the level of exposure that he needed,” she says.
Isabel put together a mixtape of unreleased work and included her contact information inside the CD case. Her best friend along with her stepmother went to the club night with her.
They managed to deliver the CD to Westwood, and Isabel says the DJ, then 53, called her the next day. The two agreed to meet in London.
Her family and friends shared her enthusiasm. “We were thinking this is a really good lead right now,” she says. “He wants to act on this quickly.”
Within days, she was on a train to London for an evening meeting. Isabel says the plan was to meet at Nike Town on Oxford Street, near the BBC Radio 1 studios.
She says that Westwood was there waiting in a huge American-style car. Isabel assumed they were going to discuss her music over coffee or a drink, a point she wishes she had clarified.
“I don’t ask where we’re going. And then at this point we start driving,” she recalls.
Pamela assumed she would be staying in a hotel as part of the work experience, but says the DJ took her to an apartment where she remembers “records, sneakers and oversized clothes everywhere.”
She says that at one point, he started trying to kiss her neck and take off her clothes. “I didn’t give him any sort of come-on. There was no flirting,” she says.
“If you’re actively trying to touch me and I’m pushing your hand away, that means I don’t want to do anything with you. If you’re trying to take [an] item of clothing off of me and I’m putting it back on, that means I don’t want it to go away. If I’m showing you that I’m uncomfortable, why wouldn’t you stop doing it?”
She says that she remembers thinking that she couldn’t get out of the situation. “I’m in London alone with this man. Now, if I try to get out of this, who’s to say how he’s going to react. So I just submit.”
Tamara spent her time in and out of the studios recording music as well as enjoying the London nightlife meeting other artists. Once she had seen him around, Westwood, then in his 30s, suggested that they should meet. She was 17 at the time and she believed the meeting was to discuss her career.
She says that, at the time, the DJ had “absolute power.”
He picked her up and, after stopping briefly at a radio station, took her to a flat.
According to her, he began to pull down her pants and underwear. “Then instantly he started giving me oral sex. There was no talking. There was no communication at all about it. It was right before I knew it, that’s what was happening.”
