Clement Freud, pictured, has been accused of abusing two young girls, the youngest of whom was just ten according to a new ITV documentary

The widow of Sir Clement Freud has said she is 'profoundly sorry' after a television documentary alleged the broadcaster and former Liberal MP had abused two girls.

Sylvia Woolsey said she was just 11 when Sir Clement – described as a national treasure by Gordon Brown at his funeral in 2009 – began abusing her. She was later invited into his marital bed alongside his actress wife Jill, and also claims he had touched her breast in front of his spouse.

Lady Freud, who is said to have had an affair with writer Will Self’s brother Jonathan when he was 16 and she was 47, issued an immediate apology last night in response to the programme.

The second woman alleges Sir Clement groomed her from 11, abused her at 14 and violently raped her at 18. He was then a Liberal MP.

In other developments:

A friend of Madeleine McCann’s parents, who were befriended by Sir Clement in Portugal, said they would be appalled;

A child abuse charity revealed his name had been on its ‘radar’;

It said it was braced for more women to come forward.

Sir Clement, a grandson of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and brother of artist Lucian Freud, was known to millions as a chef, comedian, writer and journalist.

He was a regular on BBC shows such as Radio 4’s Just A Minute.

When he died aged 84 his funeral was attended by George Osborne and stars including Bono, Stephen Fry, Paul Merton, Nicholas Parsons and Richard Curtis, the partner of his daughter Emma, 54.

Sir Clement took dark secrets to the grave, according to an ITV Exposure documentary being broadcast tonight. It paints him as a vicious sex attacker, demolishing his image as a lovable wit and raconteur.

After viewing the programme in advance, his widow, who is 89, gave a statement saying: ‘This is a very sad day for me. I was married to Clement for 58 years and loved him dearly.

‘I am shocked, deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for what has happened to these women. I sincerely hope they will now have some peace.’

Miss Woolsey, who is in her late 70s, told the documentary she did not want to take the truth to her tomb. She added: ‘It is the child in me that is speaking – the child that wants to be freed. I would like to just return to the child I was before I was molested physically.’

Lady Freud, 89, (pictured with her husband in 2003) issued an apology last night, saying she was 'shocked, deeply saddened and profoundly sorry'

Clement Freud, pictured with his dog Henry filmed several TV adverts in the 1970s for dog food

She claims she met Sir Clement in the south of France, where she was living with her parents and he was the 24-year-old manager of a Cannes hotel. He took a liking to her, and persuaded her mother to let him take her to the beach and on a bus trip, where he molested her. Back in England in 1952, Miss Woolsey’s mother’s marriage fell apart and she sent her 14-year-old daughter to London to live with Freud in his marital home.

She described a disturbing morning when the couple asked her to join them in bed. When Lady Freud went off to make breakfast, she offered to go too but claims his wife replied: ‘No no no no no, you stay where you are, stay where you are with Clay [Clement], I’ll bring it.’

Miss Woolsey recalled: ‘And I knew what was going to happen. I was in my nightdress and he pulls it up and pulls me against him, touching me and kissing me.’

Clement Freud, top left, came to prominence in the 1960s after appearing on BBC's Just A Minute

Sylvia Woolsey, who is now in her late 70s, said Sir Clement, pictured started abusing her when she was 10

International stars including Bono and his wife Ali Hewson, pictured right, attended his funeral in 2009

FREUD 'LAUNCHED ROLF HARRIS' Clement Freud said he launched the career of a star later exposed as a paedophile – Rolf Harris. Freud opened the Royal Court Theatre Club in London in 1952 after a stint in the Army, and Harris worked as a regular song-and-dance man. Freud boasted about how he had given the artist his break, saying: ‘After I ran the nightclub for about a year, I decided to have a cabaret. ‘I employed people who had never worked anywhere else before. ‘And I was the first person to employ Rolf Harris, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.’ Australian Harris, 86, who is serving a prison sentence for sexually assaulting young girls, has said Freud kick-started his career. In 2001, Harris said: ‘I was given my break in cabaret by Clement Freud, who ran a theatre club.’ Advertisement

Sir Clement, who was becoming a minor celebrity, running a cabaret club in Sloane Square, would creep into Miss Woolsey’s bedroom to molest her when he returned home late, she said.

She claims he frequently molested her, even 'playfully' touching her breast in front of his wife, although she believes Lady Freud had no knowledge of the abuse.

Miss Woolsey said she ran away at 16 and when Sir Clement found out he sent her a letter accusing her of wrongly construing ‘every sign of affection’ as having ‘an unhealthy sexual motive’.

His second alleged victim, who the programme gave the pseudonym Joanne, said she was 11 when her mother, allowed her to be groomed by him. In 1978, when Sir Clement was Liberal MP for the Isle of Ely and she was 18, she says he ‘brutally’ raped her.

Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told the Mail that Sir Clement had ‘been on the radar’ of the charity.

He added: ‘About 12 years ago, before his death, something was said to me about an allegation of rape concerning him. I was given no name of the woman, but it was given to me with absolute sincerity. At the time, I never thought it would go anywhere because he was rich and powerful. Later I spoke to a friend at Rape Crisis, and she said his name had come up in her world too, a long time ago, but she couldn’t remember the details.’

Yesterday Sir Clement’s son Matthew, the public relations supremo formerly married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, made no comment other than to dismiss a Madeleine connection.

Sir Clement, left is father of TV presenter Emma, right, and PR supremo Matthew, who had no comment

The Goddard Inquiry, which is examining claims of a Westminster paedophile ring, declined to say whether Sir Clement would form part of its investigations.

However a Scotland Yard inquiry into allegations of an Establishment paedophile ring fell apart over discredited claims by a man named ‘Nick’ about high-profile figures including Lord Bramall and former MP Harvey Proctor.

Exposure: Abused & Betrayed – A Life Sentence is on at 11.05pm.

For advice on childhood abuse, call NAPAC free on 0800 085 3330.

He'd stroke and kiss me. It was horrible, I was a child: 60 years on woman abused by Clement Freud reveals her agony in TV documentary

Sylvia Woosley met Sir Clement Freud at the age of ten when she moved to the South of France with her mother, stepfather and two sisters.

Sir Clement, then 24 and working at the glamorous Martinez hotel in Cannes, ‘immediately took a liking’ to her.

She told how he rented a house nearby and visited her parents at weekends, bringing her presents.

Sylivia Woosley, pictured, claims she was just ten when she was groomed and abused by Clement Freud

Sylvia said she had been nicknamed 'Pooh' because of her love of honey was abused in the late 1940s

Sir Clement would often take her to the beach – but she said his attentions took a more sinister turn on a trip into the hills.

Miss Woosley, nicknamed ‘Pooh’ because of her love of honey, recalled: ‘He’d stroke me, and he’d kiss me at the back of the bus on the mouth. He put his tongue in my mouth and it was wet. It was horrible and I didn’t like it. I was disgusted and helpless.’

Sir Clement’s visits to Miss Woosley’s home continued over the next 12 months until he returned to England in 1949.

In 1952, Miss Woosley’s mother’s marriage fell apart and the girl, now aged 14, was sent to live with Sir Clement and his actress wife June Flewett – known by the stage name Jill Raymond – in London.

Now they were under the same roof, Miss Woosley said Sir Clement’s behaviour escalated and he began sexually touching her in front of his wife. Miss Woosley, who has waived her right to anonymity, spoke out as part of an ITV documentary called Exposure: Abused & Betrayed – A Life Sentence. She said: ‘My breasts started to grow, and he took a liking to my left breast and was always pinching it and playing.’

She remembered a particularly disturbing incident from when she was 14, when the couple asked her to join them in bed.

Mrs Freud left the room to make breakfast and her husband sexually assaulted her, she said.

Clement Freud, pictured here at Royal Ascot in 2006 as been accused of grooming a nine-year-old girl

‘I knew what was going to happen. I was in my nightdress and he pulls it up and pulls me against him, touching me and kissing me,’ Miss Woosley added.

Sir Clement often came into the teenager’s bedroom after returning home from the nightclub he ran. She said: ‘If he had been violent, I would probably then have been able to react. But because the way he went about it was so, sort of gentle and loving ... I just lay there and he’d put his hand up my nightdress and cuddle me and touch me. And so on.’

A diary entry by Miss Woosley’s friend, Sonia Markham, corroborates her story. Dated November 1956, it reads: ‘Spent the night with Sylvia as she’s scared Clay will try and force himself on her.’ A year later, Miss Woosley told Sir Clement’s nanny about the abuse she was suffering and moved out to live with Miss Markham.

Sir Clement later found out she had confided in the nanny and wrote her an angry letter, saying: ‘If you construe every sign of affection – and there were many – as having an unhealthy sexual motive, then you are both wrong, and in spreading this to other people, so ungrateful and unfair that you have succeeded in turning genuine affection into sour and bitter feelings of contempt and disgust.’

She said her own mother was furious when she heard she had fled the Freud home, urging her to call Sir Clement’s wife and say she had made up her claims.

Miss Woosley went on to lead a nomadic, fractured life, plagued by depression, suicide attempts, and broken relationships. It was only when she reached her 40s that she felt able to challenge Sir Clement, now an MP, about the abuse. She explained: ‘I said, “Why, why me?” And he said, “Because I loved you, you were a very sensual little girl.”’

Six months later, he called and invited her to spend the weekend with him in Cambridge.

He wrote the directions for her on House of Commons paper. She finds it hard to explain why, but she accepted and ended up sleeping with him. Now in her late 70s, Miss Woosley said: ‘I had no respect for my body whatsoever ... you know it was expected of me. That’s what you do. If you want any kind of love from a man. Then you sleep with him.’

She added: ‘It destroyed something in me that broke, and I suppose it’s affected my behaviour all my life. I’ve been married twice, my relationships with men. My lack of trust, my lack of self-confidence, my self-destructions.’

Miss Woosley, who has given a full report to police, said she wanted to speak out before she dies. ‘You can’t bury the truth forever,’ she said. ‘It needs to be heard.’

Groomed at 11, then a horrific attack at 18, Clement Freud's second victim reveals how the then MP abused her in the House of Commons

Joanne – not her real name – met Clement Freud in 1971 when he came to her family home bearing gifts.

From the age of 11 onwards he would phone her and tell her she was a ‘special child with a rare, high intelligence’.

In 1973 Sir Clement became a Liberal MP, after which he went on to invite Joanne to the Houses of Parliament and to his home.

He also began grooming her. She recalled: ‘I can remember him kissing me on the mouth and soft hugging.

‘I felt sick but grateful at the same time, frightened and unable to move or react in any way.’

Sir Clement, pictured, in 1981 was a Liberal MP between 1973 and 1983, when he abused one of his victims

Sir Clement invited Joanne and a female friend of hers to his home for dinner in 1974, when she was just 14.

Joanne said: ‘During a tour of the house he tried to lock us into his basement bedroom.

‘I cannot entirely remember what he said, but it was something along the lines of: “Would you like to get naked and have some fun?”’

But the worst was yet to come.

Sir Clement offered to cook for Joanne again in June 1978, when she was 18, and invited himself over to her parents’ home.

Describing the nightmarish evening, she said: ‘He had a bath, cooked for me and then began making soft sexual advances to me at the dinner table.

‘I consistently said no but he just kept pushing and cajoling me, with leering and witty put-downs about his being good at this etc. He came down on me and I froze up with terror.

‘I kept saying I did not want him to continue forcing me, but was terrified that he would become violent.’

Sir Clement then took her by the hand to her parents’ bed, where he ‘brutally’ raped her.

After he had finished, she recalled: ‘Then he just got up, said, “you can stay there my dear” and went next door to watch the World Cup in our living room.’ Joanne, who claimed she was left bleeding for a week, called one of her friends that evening and told her what had happened.

She also tried to talk to her mother, but she just told her she had had a ‘bad sexual experience’.

Clement, right, pictured with Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, centre, abused one girl in Westminster

Freud, pictured behind Liberl leader David Steele, centre and in front of paedophile Cyril Smith, 3rd right

A year later Sir Clement was due to visit Joanne’s family home but she fled before he arrived.

He sent her a letter to say he was ‘grieved’ she had left and offered her theatre tickets.

It read: ‘I understand that you heard I was coming, and raced off into the night. This grieves me.

‘Next time, why don’t we have me race off into the night and you stay home. Alternatively, as I am now 86 and you are older than you were, may I send you a ticket to the National Theatre as a gesture of my continued affection.’ Freud was joking about his age. In fact, he was 55 at the time, some 37 years older than the young woman he allegedly raped.

Joanne said: ‘Freud was a clever man. As I now interpret what I witnessed as a child he used the personality flaws and the neuroses of others in order to manipulate them.’

Describing how the grooming affected her, Joanne said: ‘I live in constant terror that I will be found out, exposed. I have already suffered across nearly 40 years.