Freddie Starr lost fortune over child sex abuse allegations and his firm wound up with debts of £19k
FREDDIE Starr lost a fortune over historic sexual abuse allegations and his firm was wound up with debts of £19,000. The tragic comic, 76, – found dead at his home in Spain – said the claims cost him £300,000 in lost earnings. He brought a case for damages against a woman who alleged he groped […]
FREDDIE Starr lost a fortune over historic sexual abuse allegations and his firm was wound up with debts of £19,000.
The tragic comic, 76, – found dead at his home in Spain – said the claims cost him £300,000 in lost earnings.
He brought a case for damages against a woman who alleged he groped her when she attended a Jimmy Savile show, but lost.
Documents filed to Companies House show his finances were in dire straits with firm PK Celeb Ent Ltd struck off in 2017 for filing irregularities.
The last accounts showed the firm was £19,000 in the red.
LEGAL TROUBLE
Starr’s career nose-dived in 2012 after he became embroiled in Opertation Yewtree when Karin Ward accused him of putting a hand up her skirt on Savile’s BBC show Clunk Click in 1974.
The hellraiser comic was arrested four times but was never charged in relation to Ms Ward’s accusations due to “insufficient evidence”, the CPS said.
The following year, Starr tried to sue Ms Ward at the High Court for slander and libel – claiming comments she made to the BBC, ITV and statements on a website and in an eBook saw him lose £300k in earnings from cancelled shows.
She had alleged the comedian assaulted her in Savile’s dressing room and humiliated her by calling her a “titless wonder” in front of a crowd when she was 15.
Mr Justice Nicole dismissed Starr’s compensation claim because it was outside the limitation period.
His fourth wife Sophia Lea, 39 years his junior, left him that year, as he fled to the Costa del Sol.
FLED TO SPAIN
He was forced to sell his £700k home in Warwickshire and moved to Malaga, claiming to be “broke and disabled”.
Starr built up more debt and became a virtual recluse, neighbours have revealed.
He told local media he’d “shook hands with the devil” while showing off the scars from his 2011 quadruple heart bypass.
Speaking about his poor health, he said: “I can’t tour any more because I’ve got a lung condition and I’m in a wheelchair a lot.
“Freddie Starr the entertainer is dead.”
However, documents show that Starr also faced life on the streets after Ms Ward secured a legal order on his home.
LIFE ON THE STREETS
Lawyers acting for Ms Ward secured an interim charging order in January 2017 on the townhouse for nearly half a million.
The freezing order gave her the chance to recoup some of the costs from the defamation case Starr lost at the High Court.
And she moved a step closer to getting his home forcibly sold at auction a year later with a local land registry office certification.
A well-placed source said: “Starr was definitely at risk of losing his Spanish home and being turfed out on the streets.
“No date had been set for an auction but the ball was definitely rolling.
“The sale of the house would not have settled the entire debt Starr owed Ms Ward but it would have eaten into a chunk of it.
“It’s pretty shocking to think a man who was such a household name in his early career could have ended up on the streets.”
I feel suicidal at times because I don’t think things are going to get any better for me.
Freddie Starr
He likened Operation Yewtree — the police probe into historical sex offences launched in the wake of Savile’s crimes — to the “Salem witch hunt” and said he had “hit rock bottom”.
Starr added: “I feel suicidal at times because I don’t think things are going to get any better for me.”
Freddie, who was born in Merseyside in 1943, was being threatened with lawyers after refusing to pay a four-figure debt to community managers for unpaid water bills in Spain.
Residents told today how he stopped talking to them after the president of the 280-property complex tried to get him to pay up.
Ive shook hands with the devil
Starr on his arrival in Spain
One of his neighbours at his two-bed £170,000 home said Starr would “look the other way” on the rare occasions he saw him because of the debt feud.
Another neighbour added: “He never mixed with anybody in the all the time he lived here.
“I saw him walking up and down once or twice but he never communicated with anyone.
“There’s four communal pools on the complex but I never saw him use any of them.
“My feeling was he wouldn’t talk to anyone in the community and it was deliberate and to do with the unpaid bills.
“He refused to discuss the debt with the management committee and that had left the community with no option but to go through the law courts to seek resolution.
“The lawyers had been trying to contact him before his death but he never responded to anything.”
Another local who knew Freddie said the reaction to his death within the residential community was “shame, nice bloke.”
Speaking about the comedian’s life in Spain, they added: “He had a lady that lives in the property as a carer.
“She didn’t appear to want to speak English but she must have done because Freddie didn’t speak Spanish.
“I don’t think he had any friends in the community.
“Freddie’s place was a two-bed townhouse. It would have been worth around £170,000 tops. “
The resident said that reclusive Freddie, who had a heart attack in 2010, rarely left his home.
He said: “It had a patio out the front with pot plants on it. He didn’t normally come out of the property much.
SNUBBED LOCALS
“He wasn’t in good shape and he was pretty much of a recluse.
“It was around six months ago that I last saw him. He had a car when he first moved here but that disappeared a while back.”
Another local told The Sun: “Freddie hadn’t looked well for some time and rarely ventured out.
“Whenever he appeared recently his head would be down and he’d be smoking.”
BATTLED DEMONS
One of Freddie Starr’s last performances was a shambling karaoke Elvis impression at a bar in Fuengirola. Videos of a bloated Freddie in a T-shirt and shorts belting out hits with locals surfaced on Facebook.
A pal said: “He was mortified when that footage got out and realised how far he’d fallen. He wasn’t his old self after that.”
The neighbour added: “It was such a sad end from someone who’d been loved by millions.”
A well-placed local source said he had been found naked on the floor inside his home.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Police sources said there was nothing to suggest the death of the fallen comic, who suffered asthma and had a quadruple bypass following his heart attack, was suspicious.
An autopsy is expected to take place later today at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Malaga to rule out the possibility it was the result of a crime.
Civil Guard officers were called along with paramedics to his home although the first ambulance is believed to have taken some time to reach the scene.
His body was taken away just after 8pm local time after he was certified dead by a doctor.
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