Shropshire woman pledges to fight Freddie Starr in court
A woman from Shropshire today said she would battle entertainer Freddie Starr in court over a defamation claim he has brought against her over allegations he molested her when she was a teenager.
Karin Ward, 55, of St Martins, has claimed the comedian had molested her in Jimmy Savile's dressing room after appearing on the shamed DJ's TV show Clunk Click in 1974 when she was 15.
Starr, 70, said the assault allegations have cost him a small fortune in cancelled bookings and is suing Miss Ward for £300,000.
Miss Ward said today she was speaking to her legal representatives and would fight the defamation case in court.
She alleged the assault happened at a time when she and other girls from Duncroft School, a girls approved school in Surrey, were regularly invited to appear on Savile's TV shows as members of the audience and then invited to his dressing room after.
Her evidence about Savile preying on the girls at the school eventually led to a top level investigation into this past and his exposure as a paedophile.
Miss Ward said today she had been in touch with her legal team about the claim by Freddie Star and would be fighting it in court.
She said: "I have not yet seen a hard copy of the claim but have seen an online report about it. I received legal documentation on September 3 and I am now legally represented. I have not yet filed my defence but my defence will be that I am telling the truth."
Starr was arrested after Miss Ward claimed on television that he groped her in Savile's dressing room.
But Starr says her claims that he molested her are untrue and defamatory, and have cost him more than £300,000 in cancelled bookings. He has lodged a legal claim at the High Court, detailing repeated occasions when he claims she blackened his name as a paedophile.
