Yvette Fielding claims Rolf Harris sexually assaulted her - and 'grotesque'Jimmy Savile made her uncomfortable

She’s now known as one of the best ghost hunters, but one of Yvette Fielding’s first jobs was as a presenter on iconic children’s TV show ‘Blue Peter’.

She began working on the BBC show as a teenager in the late 80s - a time when Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris, who we now know to be paedophiles, were also enjoying great success in the entertainment industry and also working at the BBC.

Now Fielding, aged 55, has revealed ahead of her autobiography release at the end of this month that she was once left alone in a TV studio with Rolf Harris - and he sexually assaulted her.

She told ‘The Sun’: “It was very confusing and shocking — just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking, ‘I don’t know what to do’. Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and you left me alone in the studio with him. That shouldn’t have happened. I think a lot of them did know.”

The incident, which she said happened when she was aged 18 or 19, happened in around 1988 when Harris was still hosting children’s programme ‘Rolf Harris Cartoon Time’ and was one of the BBC’s most long-standing and coveted stars.

It was another 25 years before Harris’ sex crimes were uncovered. In 2013 he was arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, the police investigation into sexual abuse claims against Savile and other celebrities. Harris, who died last year aged 93, was found to have abused multiple girls and was convicted of sexually assaulting four girls, one who was a young as seven or eight years old.

Many of his victims have since said they felt that he had been able to carry out so many attacks because complaints about him were brushed to one side. Fielding, a former child actress whose first major role came when she was 15 in BBC kids’ drama Seaview, agrees that there was a culture of cover-up in the TV industry back then. She added: “In my time it didn’t matter what went on — ‘Is the show doing well, are we getting good viewing figures?’ Yes we are, keep going. Let’s cover it all over and get on with it’.”

Speaking further about a change in culture, she continued: “It was a different time when I was 18. The things people did back in my day, the pat on the bum and ‘wahey’, all that. Back then it was just an everyday occurrence, we had sort of grown up with it. From what I heard, certain things were brushed under the carpet — and that should never, ever have happened.”

Fielding also recalled another uncomfortable encounter with Jimmy Savile, saying how she felt uncomfortable in his presence. He died at the age of 84 in 2011, and a year later it was discovered that he had abused many people throughout his lifetime.

Speaking about a time she met him, Fielding said: “He took my hand and started stroking it. ‘Look into my eyes’, he said, ‘And tell me what you’re thinking’. He was grotesque. I just don’t understand why the BBC allowed him to get away with that for as long as he did.”

Scream Queen, by Yvette Fielding, is out on May 30 and is available to pre-order now.