Yvette Fielding claims her Most Haunted co-star Derek Acorah was a fake who tried to grope and kiss her – and on at least one occasion while pretending to be possessed by a spirit.
Her complaints against Acorah follow recent revelations that predatory pedophile Rolf Harris “squeezed and patted her bottom”, while she also had a “grotesque” encounter with sexual predator Jimmy Saville as a presenter of beginner television.
In her candid new memoir, Scream Queen, the former Blue Peter presenter reveals how she believed Acorah – who she had fallen out with – was the real deal when she first met him.
But an industry insider had advised her and her producer husband Karl Beattie against hiring Acorah, who died in 2020 aged 69 from sepsis following pneumonia, reports The Sun .
The 55-year-old presenter wrote: “Just before we started filming, one of the Granada Breeze presenters, who had previously worked with him, said: ‘You can’t use Derek Acorah on your show.’ I warn you, it’s a fake.
Ghostbuster Yvette Fielding claims her Most Haunted co-star Derek Acorah was a fake who tried to grope and kiss her – and on one occasion while pretending to be possessed by a spirit .
In one incident, Fielding recalls how Acorah “started chasing me around the restaurant and I was pushing him away because he was trying to shove his tongue down my throat.”
In one incident, she remembers how Acorah, who had been drinking, stretched out his arms as if he had been crucified on the cross and proclaimed that he was Jesus.
“He then started chasing me around the restaurant and I was pushing him away because he was trying to shove his tongue down my throat.”
She claims Acorah was “always” trying to kiss her and they laughed about it on this occasion, thinking he had drunk too much.
But she remembers there were other times when he was apparently “possessed” by a spirit and said sexually explicit things to Fielding, including repeatedly asking her to see her breasts.
Calling Acorah a “selfish monster,” Fielding also said he was a fraud who often excused himself to go to the bathroom during recordings, but was heard on his microphone trying to find out information about the history of where they were.
“The crew also got wind that if they said anything within earshot of Derek’s entourage, it would come out in an investigation as if it came from the spirit world.”
This theory was put to the test in 2005. episode which saw Acorah appear possessed by a spirit at Bodmin Prison in Cornwall.
Resident parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O’Keeffe, who was skeptical of Acorah’s abilities, said he tricked him into having other crew members feed him false information about spirits from various places.
Fielding, with Acorah (left) and co-anchor Jason Karl, said the outlet was a fraud, adding that “the team also got wind that if they said anything within earshot of the ‘Derek’s entourage, this would come out in an investigation as if he came from the spirit world’
The pair appeared together on the series investigating spirits until they were asked to leave in 2006.
Acorah, who died in 2020, and Fielding fell out, with the former Blue Peter presenter calling him a ‘selfish monster’
Acorah, who left Most Haunted in 2006, died in 2020 of sepsis following pneumonia
Dr O’Keeffe invented a long-dead South African jailer called Kreed Kafer – an anagram of Derek Faker – and said he was stunned when the TV media “was possessed by my fictional character” at the prison from Bodmin.
In 2006, after Acorah was written out of the show, Ms Fielding told Metro: “We tell people it’s all real and then it turns out it was fake, so he had to go. “
Fielding’s memories of Acorah aren’t the only time she remembers being assaulted by other celebrities.
In recent days she revealed how predatory pedophile Rolf Harris “squeezed and patted her bottom”, while she also had a “grotesque” encounter with sexual predator Jimmy Saville.
Fielding, who joined Blue Peter in 1987 aged 18, revealed Australian pervert Harris assaulted her in a TV studio two years after she started the show, after she found herself alone with him.
At the time, Harris – who died of cancer last year aged 93 – was one of the BBC’s biggest stars, and it would be another 25 years before he was unmasked as a sexual predator by the ‘Operation Yewtree.
TV veteran Fielding says there was a culture of cover-ups in the TV industry back when she started.
She said: “It was very confusing and shocking – just weird to think that Rolf Harris was hugging me and patting my bottom and I was standing there thinking, ‘I don’t know what to do.’
“Other people in the industry must have known what he looked like and (they) left me alone in the studio with him. That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19. I think a lot of people ’em knew it.
Rolf Harris pictured in 1960. He was exposed as a pedophile after the launch of Operation Yewtree and died in disgrace last year.
Fielding says she was left alone with Jimmy Savile (pictured), who stroked her hand and told her to look him in the eyes during ‘grotesque’ encounter
Australian artist Harris died almost a year ago, in May 2023, from cancer, six years after being released from prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting four girls, including one aged ‘barely seven or eight years old at the time.
Like Jimmy Savile, he was exposed as a child predator in 2013 by Operation Yewtree, the investigation launched after Savile’s death two years previously.
Yvette said she had a ‘grotesque’ encounter with Savile during which he took her hand and started caressing her, saying: ‘Look into my eyes and tell me what you think’ .
She added: “From what I’ve heard, some things have been glossed over – and that should never have happened.”
She made the comments in an interview with The Sun.
The BBC apologized in 2016 for allowing Savile and Knockout presenter Stuart Hall to sexually abuse children on its premises following a brutal report on the company’s culture at the time.