Widow of Sir Clement Freud '˜sorry' over child abuse claims

Sir Clement Freud with his wife Jill who says she is shocked and deeply saddened. Picture: PA

Sylvia Woosley, who first met Freud when she was ten and later went to live with him when her mother’s marriage broke down, claims in an ITV Exposure documentary that he molested her over several years.

A second woman, who wants to remain anonymous, alleged that the Liberal politician also abused her as a child and raped her when she was 18.

Freud, who was friends with Gerry and Kate McCann, the parents of missing three-year-old Madeleine who disappeared in 2007, was married to Jill, 89, for nearly 60 years.

In a statement released yesterday Jill Freud said: “This is a very sad day for me. I was married to Clement for 58 years and loved him dearly. I am shocked, deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for what has happened to these women. I sincerely hope they will now have some peace.”

ITV said two of Freud’s children had viewed the documentary before it was broadcast on their mother’s behalf.

In the programme, due to be screened last night, Ms Woosley, now in her late 70s, said: “I just want to clear things up before I die ... I want to die clean.

“Having been so hard on myself, trying to destroy myself so many times, you can’t bury the truth forever, it needs to be heard.

“I don’t want to take this to my tomb. I would like to just return to the child I was before I was molested physically, before I was introduced to that side of life too early.”

She told the programme she first met Freud, known as Clay, when he was 24 and working at the Martinez hotel in Cannes in the late 1940s. She was ten and her family was living in the south of France.

Ms Woosley claims he kissed her on the mouth during a bus trip. She said: “I was disgusted and helpless. I just didn’t react in any way because I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do.”

From the age of 14, when she lived with Freud and his wife in London for five years, she claims he frequently molested her, even “playfully” touching her breast in front of his wife, although she believes Mrs Freud had no knowledge of the abuse.

Later, when she was in her early 40s, Ms Woosley said she confronted Freud at the House of Commons and asked why he had abused her. She said he replied: “Because I loved you. You were a very sensual little girl.”

The second woman said she first met Freud in 1971 at her family home when she was a “lonely, neglected and socially isolated” 11-year-old.

Then a celebrity, he would call her on the phone and tell her she was special and intelligent, and he was treated as a surrogate father figure by her parents, she said.

Two years later, after he was elected as an MP, he would take her on trips to Parliament and his home, and would kiss her on the mouth and hug her.

Four years later, in June 1978, when she was 18, the woman alleges that he came over to her parents’ flat and “brutally and perfunctorily” raped her.