A fourth woman has come forward to make claims against the late broadcaster and former politician, Sir Clement Freud, alleging that he assaulted her while she was a student in the 1970s.
Rosemary Rimmer-Clay, who was a 19-year-old student at Dundee University in 1975 at a time when he was rector of the university, said that a man who she had once viewed as a hero had abused his power to prey on young girls.
After he had invited her to join him for a coffee following a meeting at a Burns Night supper, she said that he “lunged” at her in her flat after cooking an omelette for her.
“I said to him ‘this is not a good idea, my sister teaches your daughter’,” she told ITV News.
“He was horrified and he kind of backed off and then he came in a little bit again and said ‘at least give me a kiss’, and I was thinking this is vile I don’t want to give him a kiss but he had me in a corner.
“And then he gave me this horrible slobbery kiss with his tongue and literally I had never been kissed by anyone. And I thought it was a really horrible experience.”
Describing the incident as “straightforward abuse”, Rimmer-Clay, 62, said that the incident had left her feeling “repulsed and numb and shocked”.
“I saw him as someone who was a representative of the university … he was a national wit and an author, but he was abusing his power to prey on young girls,” she said in an interview, which was broadcast on Monday. She said that she did not report the incident to Dundee University or the police.
The Metropolitan police have been examining a statement from one of the women who has alleged that Freud was a paedophile who preyed on her for 10 years.
Sylvia Woosley said in the ITV documentary Exposure, which was broadcast last week, that Freud groomed and abused her from the age of 10 until she was 19. Woosley, now in her 70s, appears in the documentary in obvious distress to allege that Freud took away her childhood.
Clement Freud’s widow, Jill Freud, who is now 89, said in a statement after viewing the documentary that she was “shocked, deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for what has happened to these women … I sincerely hope they will now have some peace”.
