Dave Lee Travis guilty of groping woman on Mrs Merton Show

The ex-Top Of The Pops presenter was convicted by the jury at London’s Southwark Crown Court by a majority of 10 to two.

Travis, 69, was found guilty of indecent assault on the woman, who was working on the Mrs Merton Show, on January 17 1995.

He was cleared on a second indecent assault charge and the jury was discharged after it was unable to agree a verdict on a count of sexual assault.

Travis, who became a household name in the 1970s, faced a retrial after jurors failed to reach verdicts on those two charges arlier this year.

Judge Anthony Leonard QC warned the former radio star that he was looking at “all options” when he considered his sentence.

Wearing dark grey trousers and a light grey blazer, Travis stared straight ahead with a stony expression and held his hands in front of him as the verdicts were read out.

He glanced over his shoulder to his wife Marianne, who was sitting at the back of court, before sitting down.

Travis’s victim told the court during the trial that he got a “weird sexual thrill” as he indecently assaulted her.

She said Travis approached her in the corridor of a BBC television studio where she was smoking and commented on her “poor little lungs”, before he squeezed her breasts.

The woman, who was working as part of the production crew in Manchester, said the assault was “unbelievably weird” and he had an “intense stare” during the incident.

She said she “froze” as she was pinned against the wall by Travis before he let go of her breasts after 10-15 seconds.

The woman, who was in her early 20s at the time of the incident, said she did not make an official complaint or contact police at the time because she was young and did not want to make a “fuss”.

She gave evidence without a screen, in view of Travis in the dock, and said she had spoken in public since about the assault.

Comedian Dave Gorman, who was a writer on the show, said he remembered hearing about the incident and that it was “aggressive” and not a Carry On-style “playful” act.

“My recollection was everyone in the team would have known,” he said.

“This was office gossip to some extent.”

He added: “I recall discussions and questions about whether it had been a sort of ‘Carry On film wahey’, which might be playful albeit ill-judged, or whether it was aggressive.

“My recollection was it was aggressive.”

Sentencing was adjourned until Friday morning.

With his quirky catchphrases and over-the-top personality, Travis came to personify Radio 1 in its heyday when it pulled in massive audiences and its DJs were almost as famous as the artists whose records they played.

DLT - real name David Patrick Griffin - learned his trade in clubs and on pirate radio as well as a stint touring the United States with Herman’s Hermits before joining the BBC in the late 1960s.

Dubbed the Hairy Cornflake as a result of the hirsute presenter’s stint on the Radio 1 breakfast show, he was a fixture on the station for more than two decades and a regular on Top Of The Pops (TOTP).

The larger-than-life star, who drove a yellow pontiac he called the Flying Banana, even had a hit single of his own when his version of the trucking song Convoy GB, attributed to Laurie Lingo And The Dipsticks, was a top five hit in 1976.

It was a parody of CW McCall’s hit which had been in the charts just weeks earlier and saw him guesting on TOTP himself, dressed as a superhero with his face covered.

But by the early 1990s, audiences for Radio 1 were falling and plans to bring in a new generation of DJs - who would bring a new generation of listeners with them - were under way, with controller Matthew Bannister wielding the axe for many familiar voices thought to be out of step with the plan to appeal to younger audiences.

Travis, complete with his ‘’quack, quack, oops’’ catchphrase and gimmicks including the snooker on the radio game, was seen as old-fashioned and was being parodied on a weekly basis by Harry Enfield with his Smashie and Nicey characters.

The characters, which lampooned Travis as ‘’BLT - the Hairy Sandwich’’, reflected the view that Radio 1 and its veteran presenters were falling behind the times.

DLT jumped before he was pushed when he famously quit Radio 1 live on air in 1993, telling listeners that ‘’changes are being made here that go against my principles and I just cannot agree with them’’.

He kept working, with stints on stations including Classic Gold, Garrison Radio and Spectrum FM, but did not leave the BBC entirely.

His programme A Jolly Good Show stayed on the World Service until 2001 and in 2011 an unlikely fan emerged in the shape of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

She told the Radio Times that the request show helped make her ‘’world much more complete’’ when she listened to it during her years under house arrest.

The DJ was even introduced to the campaigning politician when she visited Broadcasting House in 2012.

Along with his love of broadcasting, Travis has also spoken of his passion for photography.

He was awarded a fellowship of the British Institute of Professional Photographers and is an associate of the Royal Photographic Society with a book of his work published.

Titled A Bit Of A Star, Media Women... Their Fine Points And Phobias As Photographed By Dave Lee Travis, the book features celebrities such as Joanna Lumley, Kim Wilde and Jenny Agutter in a variety of quirky costumes and poses.

Travis previously told jurors he had taken a series of photographs designed to ‘’halt people in their tracks’’ where stars were asked to tell him something about themselves they either liked particularly or disliked.

In his private life, Travis married Swedish girlfriend Marianne in 1971.

The couple reared pigs and chickens in the home counties, with Marianne often accompanying Travis to his guest appearances and DJ slots.

Although happily married, during his first trial Travis admitted that he had given in to ‘’temptation’’ more than once during his career, as he enjoyed the celebrity status being a Radio 1 DJ afforded him.

During his two trials, both defence and prosecution witnesses alike described the 6ft 1in-tall defendant as a “gentle giant” and ‘’larger than life’’ character who enjoyed giving bear hugs to all he met.

When asked to describe himself during the first case, he told jurors to much amusement: ‘’I have never said, in my life, that I am a sex symbol. No, I am a big, hairy, cuddly bear.’’

Jurors heard that Travis’s career dramatically ground to a halt when he was arrested in October 2012, with his defence barrister Stephen Vullo QC saying the former star was “finished” and his reputation “totally ruined”.

He has also faced financial ruin and sold his house in order to pay private investigators to help in his defence case.

Mr Vullo said the fact that Travis had been investigated by officers from Operation Yewtree - the inquiry set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal - had put him under a “massive intrusive microscope”.

“Anybody that’s ever had anything against him at all has really had the opportunity in the last two years to tell Operation Yewtree all about it,” he added.