Veteran broadcaster found not guilty on 12 counts and jury is discharged from reaching verdicts on two more

Dave Lee Travis has been cleared of a string of indecent assault charges dating back to the mid-1970s.

The former BBC Radio 1 DJ was on trial for four weeks after being accused of 13 counts of indecent assault and one of sexual assault, relating to 11 women, over a 30-year period.

But after almost 22 hours of deliberations, the jury cleared the veteran broadcaster of indecently assaulting eight women and a 15-year-old girl. The jury was discharged from reaching verdicts on the other two charges.

Travis smiled and glanced at the press bench in Southwark crown court when the verdicts were read out. His wife, Marianne, gave a thin smile from the public gallery where she was sitting with two of his former personal assistants as the not-guilty verdicts were returned. Travis was released from the dock on bail and told he should return to the court for a further hearing on 24 February.

Asked outside the court whether he was delighted, Travis told reporters: "No, I'm not delighted at all."

Standing arm in arm with his wife, Travis told the television cameras: "First of all I'm not over the moon about any of this today. I don't feel there's a victory in any way shape or form.

"On the contrary, I've been through a year-and-a-half of hell with this, which includes costing me so much money to pay for my part of this trial, proving the point that not all famous people have got loads in the bank so I had to sell my house to do it. That's ok because I know there's a lot of people who are worse off than me.

"I did lose my reputation as well, which I may try get back later. I want to say I had two trials: one by media and one by crown court, and I have to say in all honesty that I preferred trial by crown court. All I want to do now is go home, relax with my wife and daughter who has also been suffering with me."

Two Operation Yewtree detectives declined to comment as they left the courtroom.

At the time of the alleged attacks, Travis was a hugely popular BBC Radio 1 DJ who went on to front Top of the Pops and make guest appearances as a DJ up and down the country.

His legal team had argued during the trial that Travis was the victim of a "witch hunt" and was a scapegoat for Jimmy Savile's crimes. "Police and the authorities missed Jimmy Savile," Travis's barrister, Stephen Vullo, told jurors in his closing speech last week.

"In any society when something goes wrong, a harvest fails, there is a reaction, an understandable reaction.

"Nobody wants sexual predators to get away with their crimes. Everybody wants them to be brought to justice, but there is no justice whatsoever in over-reaction, bringing a 68-year-old man of impeccable character to this court and muddying his name to make us feel better about Jimmy Savile. It wouldn't right that wrong."

Travis has consistently protested his innocence since he was arrested in a dressing gown at his home in Mentmore, Buckinghamshire, under Scotland Yard's Operation Yewtree inquiry in November 2012.

His arrest stemmed from allegations made to police during the Savile scandal in October 2012. Several more women came forward to police following publicity around his arrest and an impromptu press conference the DJ held at the gates of his house, in which he strongly denied the women's allegations.

Eleven women told the court they had been groped by the DJ in settings including the Top of the Pops studio, a theatre dressing room, a VIP trailer at a Showaddywaddy concert, and live on BBC Radio 4.

But over four days on the witness stand, the broadcaster said the allegations were made up and the fantasies or exaggerations of women who could "smell money" from selling their story to the press.

"These things didn't happen. I don't know how I can convince you they didn't happen. I'm a decent human being. I cuddle people, I make jokes with people. If there's been sexual interactions it was always consensual," he told jurors in one exasperated exchange.

The prosecutor Miranda Moore QC painted the DJ as an opportunistic sexual predator who, in the environs of the BBC in the 1970s and 80s, was able to get away with his actions because no women dared complain.

But a stream of former PAs, BBC colleagues and even the Chuckle Brothers came to court to give glowing character testimonies in his defence.

Vullo emphasised to the jury that these witnesses had described Travis as a gentleman and far from the sexual predator the prosecution alleged.

"The prosecution have thrown quite a lot of mud at the defendant in this case. But mud throwing is not evidence," he told jurors. "It is not evidence capable of supporting or asserting that he has been a sexual predator for 40 years."

The criminal proceedings have already taken a toll on Travis. He has moved out of the opulent home he shared with his wife of 43 years in order to pay legal bills.

He suffers from chronic pain in his back and knees, an infirmity that once halted the trial when the judge took pity on him as he visibly struggled one morning on the witness stand. His wife, who attended court for the first time on the day the jury retired to consider its verdict, is recovering from breast cancer.

Travis was inducted into radio's hall of fame in 2010, capping a 50-year career that started on the offshore pirate station Radio Caroline and was halted on his arrest in November 2012, when Magic AM dropped him. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to draw a line under this testing episode and find a way back behind the microphone.

Court jester

Famed for his colourful broadcasting style, Travis frequently kept reporters and court staff entertained during his four-week trial.

Even during four tense days of jury deliberations, the broadcaster shunned the typically reserved style of defendants at Southwark crown court.

One afternoon he bounded into the sitting room outside court one, where dozens of journalists were sitting, to exclaim: "Shirley Temple's died! How sad."

He nicknamed one young reporter "Bobble" because of her woolly hat, and told a television journalist in the toilets: "This is the only room in the building where I can get any relief". On being shown a court artist's sketch of him in the dock, he joked: "Why've you drawn Rolf Harris?!"

The 68-year-old was popular with court staff, often joking with them as he was shown into the dock. "Front row? I've always wanted to be front row," he said one morning.

He even took part in a sweepstake on when the jury would return with the verdicts, telling reporters he had bet on 3.15pm, Tuesday 11 February. "I don't mind losing that, as long as I win something else," he remarked.

Marital support

Travis leaves court with his wife, Marianne. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Travis was supported in court during four tense days of jury deliberations by his Swedish-born wife, Marianne.

The pair, who married in 1971 but have rarely shared the spotlight, walked hand-in-hand past a flash of cameras as they left Southwark crown court for the final time, stepping into a car that drove them back to their Bedfordshire home.

In a marked contrast to Coronation Street actor William Roache's familial show of solidarity, Travis arrived alone by train from Bedfordshire right up until the final days of the trial.

Marianne was accompanied in court by two former personal assistants, Amanda Townley and former Pickettywitch backing singer Margaret Merritt, while Travis sat in front of them in the glass-enclosed dock, flanked by one security guard.

He was fiercely protective of his wife while giving evidence, saying he wouldn't dream of dragging her into the "circus" of his trial or calling her as a character witness.

He told detectives during police interviews that Marianne, who was recovering from breast cancer, was at that moment rearranging furniture for the smaller home they'd been forced to move to to pay legal bills.

• This article was amended on 14 February 2014. An earlier version said that Mentmore is in Bedfordshire. The postal address is Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, but it is in fact in Buckinghamshire.