Tim Westwood has been booked to perform at a New Year’s Eve party in London, despite the DJ being accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women.
The Hatch Club shared a poster announcing the event on their Instagram page earlier this week. The venue is promising the “littest party in London” from 9pm to 4am on December 31, with Westwood behind the decks. Tickets are on sale for £10.
Westwood himself announced the performance much earlier, on November 29, sharing the poster to his own Instagram page. The DJ – who also performed at a party in Lagos, Nigeria over the weekend – has since reshared the poster multiple times.
According to The Sun, multiple comments left on the Hatch’s Instagram page announcing the performance have since been deleted. NME has reached out to Hatch Club for comment regarding their decision to book Westwood for the event.
Westwood, a former BBC Radio 1 and Capital Xtra presenter, was first publicly accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women earlier this year. His alleged behaviour was detailed in a joint investigation conducted by The Guardian and BBC, and a BBC Three documentary titled Tim Westwood: Abuse of Power.
Three women accused Westwood of opportunistic or predatory sexual conduct when they agreed to meet with the DJ for a discussion regarding the music industry of their work. They were aged 17, 19 and 20 at the time of the alleged incidents. Four other women claimed the DJ groped them when they attended his club night sets. All seven women were Black.
Westwood denied all these allegations when they emerged. Shortly afterwards, Capital Xtra’s parent company Global Radio announced that, due to the claims, Westwood would be stepping down from his Capital Xtra radio show “until further notice”. Multiple venues cancelled planned DJ appearances from Westwood.
Despite BBC’s Director General Tim Davie saying in April that the station found “no evidence of complaints” being made against Westwood, in July, the company revealed they received six allegations of misconduct against the DJ prior to the aforementioned accusations becoming public in April.
The same month, more accusations came to light. One woman came forward to allege that Westwood had sex with her several times when she was 14 and he was in his 30s. Two other women said they were sexually assaulted by Westwood when they were in their mid-teens, and another said she was in a “controlling” relationship with Westwood when she was 16 and he was in his 40s. Westwood again denied all allegations.
In August, the BBC launched an independent inquiry into what the corporation knew about Westwood’s alleged conduct. The inquiry is set to last six months, and the BBC wants to include Westwood’s other employees, MTV and Global. As part of the investigation, the inquiry will also examine whether concerns about Westwood’s behaviour were a factor in his departure from the BBC in 2013.
For help, advice or more information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.
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