The director-general of the BBC faces questions after the broadcaster revealed that it did have evidence of a police complaint against Tim Westwood, the former Radio 1 DJ, despite earlier claims to the contrary.
Tim Davie said in April, when allegations emerged of predatory sexual behaviour by Westwood, that the BBC had “looked at our records” and found no complaints against him. But yesterday, three months after Davie’s comments, the BBC was forced to confirm that six complaints had been received, one of which was referred to the police “several years ago”.
Westwood, 64, has been accused by seven women of abusing his position as a gatekeeper in the UK hip-hop scene for the purposes of sexual gain between 1992 and 2017. The women are all black and were in their late teens or twenties at the time. They allege that he isolated them and pressured them into sex, groped them or exposed himself, according to a BBC and Guardian newspaper investigation in April.
Davie told the Voice of the Listener and Viewer spring conference that the allegations were “shocking”. He added: “I’ve seen no evidence of complaints. I’ve asked, and we looked at our records and we’ve seen no evidence.”
The BBC revealed yesterday that there were, in fact, six complaints, at least one of which had been received before the publication of claims against Westwood. He spent nearly 20 years with the BBC before leaving Radio 1 and 1Xtra in 2013. Before the publication of allegations against him, he had a Saturday night show on Capital Xtra, where he was referred to as “Big Dawg”.
When the allegations first surfaced, a representative of the DJ denied them and said no complaints had ever been made against him, even unofficially. The BBC said yesterday that the DJ had been spoken to about one of the complaints.
Westwood, the son of an Anglican bishop and said to have been the inspiration for Sacha Baron-Cohen’s Ali G character, was one of the nation’s most recognisable DJs in the 1990s, becoming a globally respected figure in urban music after featuring stars including Eminem and Jay-Z.
Westwood launched the UK’s first national hip-hop radio show, on BBC Radio 1 in 1994, using it as a showcase for new talent, many of whom became household names.
Westwood was injured in a drive-by shooting in Kennington, south London, in July 1999, when a gunman on a motorcycle peppered his Land Rover with bullets after a DJ set in Lambeth.
Among the recently published allegations of sexual misconduct, one woman claimed the DJ had taken her back to his flat and forced himself on her when she was 19 and he was 53. She said she had thought Westwood, who denies all wrongdoing, would help her with her career but he took her back to his flat and produced a condom with his own face and slogan on the packaging.
According to The Guardian the woman, known only as Isabel, said Westwood had initiated sex, and she was so “frozen” that she did not tell him her misgivings.
Another woman, known only as Tamara, said she had met Westwood when she was a 17-year-old member of a British R&B group. The DJ was in his mid-thirties when he invited her to his flat. She claims he pulled down her trousers and underwear and gave her oral sex against her will.
In 2018, a Times investigation into a leaked database of Met police intelligence found that Westwood’s YouTube channel was profiting from drill rap videos in which known gang members incited violence.
The BBC said Davie had made his comments “in good faith based on what he understood to be the position at the time”. With regard to the referral to police, it added: “This is a historical case that the BBC has found in its files.
“We are establishing the facts around it. It did not relate to conduct at the BBC, BBC premises, or conduct towards a BBC staff member, nor was it an accusation of physical assault.”