Former newspaper owner Eddy Shah who was acquitted last month of raping a schoolgirl in the 1990s, has said underage girls who engage in consensual sex must take blame for the abuse they suffer.
The 69-year-old was recently found not guilty at the Old Bailey of raping a girl when she was aged between 12 and 15.
In his first major interview since his acquittal, Shah told BBC Radio 5 Live that rape charges involving girls who throw themselves at celebrities “was a technical thing”.
“These girls were going out with pop groups and becoming groupies and throwing themselves at them,” he said..
“Young girls and young men have always wanted a bit of excitement when they are young. They want to appear adult and do adult things,” said Shah — who founded the now-defunct Today newspaper in 1986.
Asked if this meant the underage victims were themselves at fault, Shah said: “If we’re talking about girls who just go out and have a good time, then they are to blame.
“If we talk about people who go out and actually get ‘raped’ raped, then I feel no – and everything should be done against that.”
He also said Operation Yewtree — Scotland Yard’s investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by former television presenter Jimmy Savile and other stars from the 1970s and 1980s — is developing into a “witch hunt”.
His comments come less than a week after a prosecutor in an unrelated case described a 13-year-old victim as “predatory” and “sexually experienced” in court.
Eddy Shah says abused girls can be to blame
