Petition launched to have the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury renamed as it is “a slap in the face to sexual abuse survivors”

Not so long ago we ran a story about an auction of records and memoraboilia that had once belonged to the DJ John Peel.

It began: "Famous son of Heswall, pioneering DJ, broadcaster, producer, and journalist, John Ravenscroft (1939 -2004), better known as John Peel, arguably did more for modern music than any single broadcaster."

It appears there was another side to the man of which, kind of shamefully, I was unaware, as much of the damning evidence is in the public domain and put there by Peel himself.

John Peel's attitude to and behaviour with young females has now resulted in a petition to remove his name from a stage at Glastonbury on the grounds that he was a self-confessed serial sex abuser.

The opening statement of the petition reads: "The John Peel stage at Glastonbury is long overdue being renamed, considering the serious sexual abuse he has been accused of and even admitted, against women and children."

It goes on to quote a 1975 interview John Peel gave to the Guardian in which he said of young women : "All they wanted me to do was abuse them, sexually, which, of course, I was only too happy to do".

Next, a comment he made to the Sunday Correspondent in 1989: "One of my, er, regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older."

The John Peel Stage at Glastonbury was known as the New Bands Tent until 2004 when it was renamed after the DJ. It shares some of the principles that had underpinned his broadcasting career - like giving space to new artists, bands and genres of music that might not otherwise have the chance to play at the festival.

John Peel was born in Heswall Nursing Home, the eldest of three sons of Robert Leslie Ravenscroft, a successful cotton merchant, and his wife Joan Mary. He grew up in Burton. 

He died in October 2004, not long after the Glastonbury stage had been named - now very controversially - in his honour.

At time of writing, the petition has attracted more than 1500 signatures.