Hank Marvin reveals Cliff Richard’s anguish over child abuse claims

Guitar legend Hank Marvin has spoken movingly of his friend Cliff Richard’s anguish over the child abuse allegations the singer faced.

Speaking in a YouTube interview with Alex Belfield, Marvin, who played guitar in Richard’s band The Shadows, called the singer “the most unsleazy person you could wish to meet.”

“He treats everybody with respect, man, woman, young person, old person, it’s the way he was brought up,” Marvin, who has known Richard since the singer was 17, said. “Never does he touch people inappropriately like a lot of guys do in showbiz, he’s never been like that so the whole idea of this was to me totally bizarre.”

Richard was the subject of a highly publicised, 22-month police investigation over allegations he abused four boys more than 30 years ago – allegations Richard repeatedly denied. The investigation ended in June 2016 with the announcement the South Yorkshire Police wouldn’t bring any charges.

“I can’t even begin to imagine the emotional turmoil that he went through,” Marvin, 75, said. “We were in communication from time to time so I know it was pretty grim for him [but] we don’t really know the depths of emotional devastation.”

The police have since apologised to Richard, 73, over its handling of a raid on the singer’s home in Berkshire in 2014 that the police allowed the BBC to film.

The singer is currently suing both the police and the BBC over the raid and the media coverage around it, and it has emerged in court that a reporter at the BBC was tipped off by a police source of the impending raid.

Richard’s lawyers have argued that the coverage, which named him as a suspected sex offender, caused him great personal harm.

“I was named before I was even interviewed [by police] and for me that was like being hung out like live bait,” he said after the announcement he would not face charges.

But the BBC has defended itself, saying that it published Richard’s denials of the claims at the time.

The case is currently on hold while both sides try to come to a settlement.

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