Monday 4 July 2022 04:09 PM Festival goer calls for Glastonbury's John Peel Stage to be renamed over ... trends now
A festival-goer is calling for Glastonbury’s John Peel Stage to be renamed over historical sexual abuse claims against the late BBC Radio One DJ, calling it a 'slap in the face' for victims.
Jack Owens, 26, said the stage is 'long overdue' a change and is petitioning organisers to remove the former BBC presenter's name from the tent ahead of next year's festival.
His petition comes after a woman, Jane Nevin, claimed in 2012 she became pregnant by Peel during a three-month affair when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl in 1969.
Glastonbury's New Bands Tent took its new name in 2004, the year that Peel died of a heart attack, in honour of the DJ's work.
A festival-goer has created a petition to have the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury renamed. Pictured, John Peel receiving an OBE in 1998
Mr Owens said the stage's name is a 'slap in the face' for victims. Pictured, the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2015
Peel, who died of a heart attack in 2004, is alleged to have met Nevin at a Black Sabbath concert when he was 30.
She claims he had sex with her in the BBC studio and backstage at concerts.
In an interview with The Sunday Correspondent in 1989, Peel said: 'Girls used to queue up outside. By and large not usually for sh*****g.
'Oral sex they were particularly keen on, I remember. [...] One of my, er, regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older..'
There are historical sexual abuse claims against the former BBC Radio 1 DJ. Pictured at work
Fifteen of radio's best-known disc jockeys eating Christmas Lunch at the Broadcasting House. Back, from left: Simon Bates, Mike Read, Peter Powell, Tommy Vance, Adrian Love and Richard Skinner. Middle, from left: Paul Burnett, Andy Peebles, John Peel, Steve Wright, Annie Nightingale, Paul Gambaccini, and Adrian Juste. Front, from left, Dave Lee Travis and Jimmy Saville
Peel presented much of the BBC's TV coverage of Glastonbury Festival. Pictured in 1999 at the festival