Stuart Hall could face a custodial sentence (Picture: PA)

A senior human rights barrister has called for the age of consent to be lowered to 13 in order to prevent the ‘persecution of old men’ such as Stuart Hall.

Barbara Hewson said child sex abuse crimes were ‘low level misdemeanours’ and likened what she saw as the post-Jimmy Savile ‘witch-hunt’ to Soviet-era Russia.

Last month Hall admitted 14 indecent assaults on girls as young as nine, while Scotland Yard’s Operation Yewtree, launched after the claims against Savile, has arrested Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, DJ Dave Lee Travis, comedian Jim Davidson and PR guru Max Clifford. All deny any wrongdoing.

Ms Hewson, a barrister at Hardwicke chambers, said Yewtree and its ‘attendant zealots’ posed more threat to society than anything Savile did, accusing law enforcement agencies of ‘fetishising victimhood’.


The agent of consent should be lowered, Barbara Hewson says (Picture: Reuters)

‘The low-level misdemeanours with which Stuart Hall was charged are nothing like serious crime,’ she wrote for online magazine Spiked.



‘Ordinarily, Hall’s misdemeanours would not be prosecuted, and certainly not decades after the event.

‘What we have here is the manipulation of the British criminal-justice system to produce scapegoats on demand. It is a grotesque spectacle.’

She went on to say that ‘touching a 17-year-old’s breast, kissing a 13-year-old, or putting one’s hand up a 16-year-old’s skirt’ were not comparable to gang rapes or murders.

Jimmy Savile died in 2011 aged 84 and has since been exposed as one of Britain’s worst child sex offenders (Picture: PA)

As well as calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 13, Ms Hewson also said guaranteed anonymity to sexual abuse complainants should be removed, and the statute of limitations reformed to prevent historic allegations being prosecuted.

‘These outdated and simply ill-informed views would be shocking to hear from anyone but to hear them from a highly experienced barrister simply beggars belief,’ said Peter Watt, director of the NSPCC helpline.

‘Stuart Hall has pleaded guilty to abusing children as young as nine years old, we think most people would agree that crimes of this nature are incredibly serious. Thankfully the law, and most people, are very clear on this matter.

‘To minimise and trivialise the impact of these offences for victims in this way is all but denying that they have in fact suffered abuse at all. Any suggestion of lowering the age of consent could put more young people at risk from those who prey on vulnerable young people.’

In a statement Hardwicke chambers said it was ‘shocked’ by Ms Hewson’s article.

‘We did not see or approve the article pre-publication and we completely dissociate ourselves from its content and any related views she may have expressed via social media or any other media outlets,’ the chambers added.