Dave Lee Travis found guilty of indecent assault

By Juliet Bremner: ITV News Correspondent

Dave Lee Travis has been found guilty of indecent assault against a woman who claimed he groped her while she worked on the Mrs Merton TV show in 1995. They reached their decision by a majority of 10 - 2.

The victim who is now a female entertainer made the accusation after the veteran disc jockey was acquitted of 10 charges of indecent assault at an earlier trial.

She claimed that she was backstage at the Granada studios smoking a cigarette when DLT approached her and chided her for smoking saying it would harm "her poor little lungs". He then rubbed her chest and took hold of her breasts in "an aggressive manner." She told her boss and other staff working on the programme immediately after the assault.

They told the jury that no action was taken at the time of the offence because the victim didn't feel traumatised and they decided to just wait until he left the building. But they were angry that he had branded other women liars after the first trial, so came forward with the allegation then.

Two other charges were heard during the trial - these were both retrials after the jury failed to reach a decision in February. On the first, a charge of indecent assault made by a woman at a pantomime in Crawley in the early 1990s, the jury found DLT not guilty.

On the second, a charge of sexual assault made by a former journalist who visited the star's home in 2008, the jury was once again unable to reach a decision.

When the verdicts were delivered Dave Lee Travis, charged under his real name David Griffin, gave no visible reaction. His wife, Marianne, sitting at the back of the court also gave no hint of her emotions.

Previously the veteran broadcaster has said the allegations have cost him his health, his home and his reputation. He is understood to have remortgaged his house to pay his legal bills and he told the court that he had been so stressed by the accusations that he cried himself to sleep.

The defence barrister representing him has suggested that they will be asking for a community order rather than a prison sentence.