EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Whatever you might think of Freddie Starr, it is difficult not to feel some compassion for him. The comedian was arrested four times during Operation Yewtree, the wide-ranging investigation into historic child abuse, but released without charge. Desperate to clear his name, he launched a libel claim against the woman who had pointed the finger at him. Karin Ward, a victim of serial sex offender Jimmy Savile, claimed Starr, a huge celebrity in the 1970s and a regular on primetime TV, shoved his hand up her skirt when she appeared on the BBC show Clunk Click in 1974 at the age of just 15. She also said he called her 'a t**less wonder'. Starr accused Ms Ward of lying and sought £300,000 for alleged slander and libel in interviews she gave to the BBC and ITV. But he lost. Now, overweight, beaten and broke, he is hiding out in an apartment on the Costa del Sol which has become, he says, a prison.
