A petition has been launched to rename Glastonbury's John Peel stage.
The festival's New Bands Tent was named after the former Radio 1 DJ, who was born in Heswall, following his death in 2004. But now a petition is calling for his name to be stripped from the stage following claims of sexual assault.
Jack Owens, 26, who started the petition, wants organisers to remove Mr Peel's name from the tent for next year's festival. 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.
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"It's a slap in the face to sexual abuse survivors, women, children and decent people to have to stand in a stage with his name on it, which has the sick words "teenage dreams so hard to beat" written on the side. Please rename it for next year's festival. He's been put up on pedestal for too long."
In 2012, a woman claimed she may have become pregnant during a three-month affair with the DJ in 1969, when she was 15 years old and Mr Peel was 30. Jane Nevin told the Daily Mail : "Looking back, it was terribly wrong and I was perhaps manipulated".
Additionally, Peel told the Guardian in 1975: "All they wanted me to do was abuse them, sexually, which, of course, I was only too happy to do". In 1989, he said to the Sunday Correspondent that girls: "used to queue up outside oral sex they were particularly keen on, I remember one of my regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older."
At the time of writing, the petition, which is addressed to festival director Emily Eavis, has been signed by almost 600 people. Glastonbury Festival has been approached for comment.
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