Julie Wadsworth: BBC host posed 'nearly naked' in calendar
A former BBC host accused of child sex offences posed nearly naked for a charity calendar, a court has heard.
Julie Wadsworth, who has told her trial she is body conscious, starred in the "Naughty but Nice" calendar posing as Lady Godiva in one shot. She and her husband Tony are on trial at Warwick Crown Court accused of assaulting seven boys in the 1990s. Mrs Wadsworth accepts having sexual encounters with "young men" but has repeatedly denied they were children. 'Saucy poses' Giving evidence in her defence on Thursday, Mrs Wadsworth claimed she still suffered low body confidence. But Miranda Moore QC, prosecuting, suggested she had "courted publicity". She asked: "You would have photographs taken as what I would describe as saucy poses, wouldn't you?" Asked about the charity calendar, Mrs Wadsworth said "it was a Children in Need calendar called 'Naughty but Nice', sold to listeners to raise donations". Mrs Moore asked: "You were somebody who was very happy to do a Calendar Girl-style calendar, and weren't body conscious at all as long as it passed the standards of the BBC?" The defendant replied: "It was no different to that [Calendar Girls], it was not salacious at all." The couple previously worked for BBC Leicester and Birmingham-based BBC WM. Complainants have claimed they were approached and propositioned by Mrs Wadsworth wearing white stockings near woodland, while Mr Wadsworth allegedly kept watch. Mrs Wadsworth said she hated white stockings, but did own a pair of long white socks worn in a "Jennifer Aniston-style" as "a bit of fun" at Christmas. However, when presented with prosecution evidence, she also accepted wearing "a dress and stockings" for her and her husband's Late Show BBC programme entitled "Julie's Christmas Stocking". 'I'm a victim' Mrs Wadsworth was then asked about alleged sexual activity in the woods with a male she claimed encountered the married couple while they were "petting" in the trees. She said: "We didn't say no, and when he walked forward we accepted that it was all of the moment, of sexual arousal. "We were in a situation, he came forward and it happened." Mrs Wadsworth later claimed she was a "victim" of the process, adding: "The reason I use the word victim is because I am being victimised for something I did not do." Asked about another encounter involving what the prosecution claim were three children, Mrs Wadsworth accepted the incident happened but denied they were underage. She said: "No, they weren't boys, they were men - I can tell by the way they looked, they were 17 or older." The couple, from Broughton Astley, Leicestershire, deny five counts of outraging public decency which allege they engaged in sexual activity "against a tree" in view of others between July 1992 and June 1996. Mrs Wadsworth, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges of indecent assault, while her 69-year-old husband denies nine counts of the same offence.