Starr groped girl, 15, at Savile TV show

Comedian Freddie Starr groped and humiliated a 15-year-old girl at a Jimmy Savile TV show 41 years ago, the High Court has ruled.

Mr Justice Nicol, who dismissed the 72-year-old comedian’s claims for slander and libel yesterday, said Karin Ward had proved the truth of her allegations.

Starr, who now faces a costs bill unofficially estimated at about £1m, said he did not at first remember appearing on Clunk Click in March 1974, until footage showed him in the studio, with the teenager in the audience behind him.

He insisted it was not in his “moral compass” to have groped her and called her a “t**less wonder”.

He said he was faithfully married to the second of his four wives at the time, and had never groped anyone in his life and it was untrue he had “wandering hands”.

Starr sued over interviews given to the BBC and ITV in October 2012 and statements on a website and in an eBook — and claimed he has lost £300,000 because of shows cancelled as a result of the allegations.

Ms Ward, 57, who relied on the defences of justification and public interest, told the court she was abused by her stepfather from the age of four and Starr’s “extremely unpleasant” smell reminded her of him.

The mother of seven said she had performed a sexual act on Savile more than once in return for going to BBC Television Centre in London for his Clunk Click show.

Starr, who attended last month’s trial in London in a wheelchair but was not in court for the ruling, said in evidence that he did not drink, and never had done.