Stuart Hall (presenter)

James Stuart Hall Jr. (born 25 December 1929) is an English former media personality and convicted sex offender.

The first football match that Hall reported on was Sheffield Wednesday versus Leicester City at Hillsborough in 1958, where the teams shared eight goals.

Despite his love of Manchester City, he has affectionately referred to their former home ground Maine Road as the 'Theatre of Base Comedy', an allusion to City's Manchester rivals Manchester United's home ground Old Trafford, which is known as the 'Theatre of Dreams'.

Hall joined the BBC in 1959 as a general reporter on Radio Newsreel and a sports journalist on Sports Report.

He presented regional news programmes for the BBC in North West England in the 1960s and 1970s, while becoming known nationally for presenting the game show It's a Knockout (which was part of the international Jeux Sans Frontières franchise).

Hall's later career mainly involved football reporting on BBC Radio.

Between 1965 and 1990, he presented BBC North West's regional news programmes produced in Manchester, originally called Look North, then Look North West and finally North West Tonight, alongside John Mundy.

During the run of Nationwide (1969–83), Hall became known nationally through live link-ups.

During the 1970s, Hall developed a relationship with Liverpool manager Bill Shankly and became a regular visitor to the Anfield 'Boot Room'.

Hall also presented Quiz Ball (a BBC football quiz show) between 1971 and 1972; was the original host of the long-running sports quiz A Question of Sport (at that time only broadcast in the North of England); presented Going, Going, Gone (a BBC antiques quiz show) in the late 1990s; and provided the voice-over for God's Gift for Granada Television.

Between 1972 and 1982, Hall became particularly well known as the presenter of It's a Knockout on BBC1 and its European equivalent, Jeux Sans Frontières.

He would often be overcome by laughter at the slapstick antics of the competitors.

This led to his becoming a popular subject for impersonation.

His relationship with Bob Paisley enabled him to pull off a coup, capturing the team's first European Cup final in 1977 in Rome.

Smuggled into the ground as a club employee, Hall spent the match on the substitutes' bench wearing the No 14 shirt.

This enabled him to get inside television footage of the team's 3–1 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach.

As a television presenter with Look North, Hall used to turn out for benefit matches, scoring twice against Gordon Banks in Eddie Hopkinson's testimonial at Bolton Wanderers.

Hall worked as a football reporter for BBC Radio 5 Live for some years.

After the series was cancelled, Hall presented the one-off Grand Knockout Tournament (also known as "It's a Royal Knockout") in 1987, and retained the rights to the programme and some costumes, which enabled him to host similar programmes and events in other parts of the world.

In 1990, Hall moved to ITV Granada's Granada Reports, where he worked with Bob Greaves in a slot titled "Greaves and Hall."

During the 2000s, he joined Channel M, a local television station in Manchester, presenting Hall's Heroes on Channel M News.

In 2008, Hall provided his voice for a special segment on Les Dennis's Home Video Heroes.

In a typical episode, he would be shown a series of funny clips and there would be a 'laugh-ometer' at the bottom of the screen measuring how much he laughed.

As a football reporter, Hall is associated with the phrase "The Beautiful Game", which he popularised, and which he reports he coined in his youth to describe football.

As a lifelong Manchester City supporter, he admired prolific goal-scorer Peter Doherty's style of playing and consequently used the phrase "The Beautiful Game" to describe Doherty.

On 10 December 2009 Radio 5 Live presented a special programme, Stuart Hall Night, broadcast live from the City of Manchester Stadium.

In May 2012, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a journalist and regular columnist for The Independent, received an anonymous three-page letter alleging that Hall had groomed and sexually abused the sender while she was a schoolgirl in the 1970s.

The writer stated that she had been motivated to disclose her experiences by the reports of sexual abuse by Jimmy Savile after his death and by her anger at Hall's appointment as an OBE in the 2012 New Year Honours.

Alibhai-Brown passed the letter to the Metropolitan Police at Ealing police station, who in turn sent it on to Lancashire Constabulary, in whose jurisdiction the alleged offences had occurred.

Lancashire Constabulary then began an investigation.

On 5 December 2012, police arrested Hall and charged him with three historical counts of indecent assault, involving a 16- or 17-year-old girl in 1974, a 9-year-old girl in 1983, and a 13-year-old girl in 1984.

Released on bail, Hall initially denied any wrongdoing, issuing a statement through his solicitor that he was "innocent of these charges".

In June 2013, he was convicted of multiple sexual offences against children, effectively ending his media and broadcasting career.

Stuart Hall was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, the eldest son of baker James Stuart Hall, and his Irish-born wife, Mary (née Hennessey).

He was brought up in Hyde, Cheshire, and Glossop, Derbyshire, attending the local grammar school.

Hall directed plays when at school and chaired its debating society.

While studying at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, he was offered a playing contract with Crystal Palace F.C. but turned it down because of the low wages.

When he appeared at Preston Magistrates' Court on 7 January 2013, he pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

The case was committed to Crown Court for trial.

Hall was released on bail on condition that he remained resident at his home address and had no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17.