Joan Bakewell On The Day She Had To Fend Off A Government Minister... With No Help From BBC ‘Predators'

Joan Bakewell has told how she was sexually harassed early in her career by a government minister – and also claimed there were “predators” within the BBC.

- Berny Torre

The broadcaster, author, journalist and Labour peer has revealed how she was the “victim of unwelcome attention” during the 1950s and 1960s.

In the interview, to be broadcast on Times Radio at noon today, Joan, 87, described how a junior minister, who has since died, had to be “fended off” after he made a grab for her.

She said: “I was assaulted by a member of the government in a taxi when I went to fetch him from the Commons to come on the programme.

“You know, this kind of thing happened, it happened all the time.”

When asked whether she reported the minister to police, she said there would have been no point.

She explained: “They would’ve said, ‘Well, that’s just to do with your private life, you’re all right, he’s not done anything that breaks the law’.”