Chris Bryant says he was sexually abused by former National Youth Theatre boss
Sir Chris said Mr Croft, who died in 1986, had invited him to dinner every evening while he was attending the company in London during the summer of 1978.
Mr Croft was 40 years the then 16-year-old's senior and Sir Chris said one evening, having returned to Mr Croft's house, he came back from the toilet to find his host naked except for a silk robe.
The MP said Mr Croft then asked him for sex, which he felt he had no option but to go through with, leaving him feeling like he was 'a 16-year-old whore'.
In an interview with The Sunday Times ahead of the release of his book A Life And A Half: The Unexpected Making Of A Politician, Sir Chris said: 'I don't like telling this very much because I've not told it very often.
'It was always the same Italian in King's Cross. He would eat and drink, I would eat, then he would theoretically give me a lift home, except I always ended up at his house.'
Sir Chris says Mr Croft never made an advance towards him again, with the pair remaining friends. An ordained minister, he conducted Mr Croft's funeral.
'He behaved absolutely appallingly, it's despicable,' Sir Chris added.
'Michael, in my case, managed to spot somebody who was gay at a time when nearly all homosexuality was illegal – certainly very frowned on – so presumed that people would keep a secret.'
He said at least one friend during his National Youth Theatre days was also abused by Mr Croft.
The 63-year-old also said he has been sexually assaulted by five male MPs during his time in Westminster, although he has not named or reported them.
'There was no system for doing so and I was frightened it would make me look bad,' he said, adding he felt homophobia in Parliament has declined during his 24 years as an MP.
A statement on the National Youth Theatre website said: 'We are grateful to Chris Bryant for disclosing to our team the historical abuse he suffered in the company in the 1970s. We are very sorry that this happened to him and to others who have previously shared with us their accounts of historic abuse by the same perpetrator.
'As we set out in a public statement on the case in 2017, we stand in solidarity with all victims of abuse and encourage anyone who has experienced abuse, no matter how long ago, to speak to someone and access support.
'In this case the perpetrator has been deceased since 1986, but all reports made to us will be dealt with in accordance with our robust and formalised safeguarding policy and practice.
'While Chris writes he doesn't feel damaged by what happened, we recognise that being subjected to an abuse of power can have lasting consequences for many, in different ways.
'Anyone getting in touch will be listened to and treated with care and respect by trained professionals, in line with our certified trauma-informed practice.
'We are grateful to Chris for his support of our organisation today, and acknowledgement of how different a charity we are in 2025 to the one he encountered in the 1970s, with thorough safeguarding practices and policies in place.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Phillips hits out at Farage over children's safety online
Jess Phillips has joined criticism of Reform UK's pledge to repeal the Online Safety Act, suggesting such a move would empower 'modern-day Jimmy Saviles'. Ms Phillips, the Home Office minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, appeared to accuse Nigel Farage of being more concerned about 'clicks for his monetised social media accounts' than children's safety online. She backed her colleague Peter Kyle after his row with the Reform UK leader last week. The Technology Secretary said Mr Farage was putting himself on the side of 'extreme pornographers' and people like Savile by opposing the law. Under rules that came into effect on July 25 as part of the act, online platforms such as social media sites and search engines must take steps to prevent children from accessing harmful content such as pornography or material that encourages suicide. Mr Farage has said the legislation threatens freedom of speech and open debate. Writing in The Times, Ms Phillips said: 'Farage said it's the biggest threat to freedom of speech in our lifetimes. 'My colleague Peter Kyle said he was siding with modern-day Jimmy Saviles preying on children online.' She said she would like to speak to Mr Farage about 'one of those modern-day Saviles, Alexander McCartney'. McCartney, who posed as a teenage girl to befriend young females from across the globe on Snapchat and other platforms before blackmailing them, 'just needed a computer' to reach his targets, Ms Phillips wrote. Believed to be one of the world's most prolific online offenders, McCartney abused at least 70 children online and drove one girl to suicide. Ms Phillips said the Online Safety Act exists to try to provide a 'basic minimum of protection, and make it harder for paedophiles to prey on children at will'. She said police have told her that paedophile networks use 'normal websites where their parents assume they're safe' to coerce and blackmail young people. 'Perhaps Nigel Farage doesn't worry about that — there's no political advantage in it, and no clicks for his monetised social media accounts. But I do. 'I worry about what it means now and what it will mean when boys reared on a diet of ultraviolent online child abuse are adult men having children of their own. I can't ignore that, neither can Peter Kyle, and, most importantly, nor can millions of parents across the country. 'I defy Nigel Farage to tell me what any of that has to do with free speech. 'I defy him to meet even one parent who has lost a daughter to suicide because she was being blackmailed online and tell them that is just the price of civil liberties. Maybe he'd feel differently after that kind of meeting, or maybe he wouldn't care.' Her comments echo those of Mr Kyle, who said last week: 'Make no mistake about it, if people like Jimmy Savile were alive today, he'd be perpetrating his crimes online. And Nigel Farage is saying that he's on their side.' Mr Farage demanded an apology from the Technology Secretary, who refused to withdraw the remarks. Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información Se produjo un error al recuperar la información
Yahoo
4 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Emergency services flood street after car engulfed by flames
Fire crews are battling a dramatic car fire in Tameside tonight. Emergency services are currently in attendance on Railway Street in Dukinfield. Pictures and videos from the scene showed a car completely engulfed by flames. READ MORE: Manchester United vs Everton live goal and score updates as Bruno Fernandes penalty puts Reds ahead READ MORE: Man, 26, dies after being found collapsed in cell at police station Never miss a story with the MEN's daily Catch Up newsletter - get it in your inbox by signing up here Crackling and the smashing of glass could be heard before fire engines arrived and began dousing it in water. The fire then appeared to spread to a second car parked nearby. A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said the incident involved two vehicles. Crews remained at the scene tackling the fire, they said. Join the Manchester Evening News WhatsApp group HERE No further details have yet been disclosed. It is not yet known if anyone has been injured. -- For the latest stories and breaking news visit Get the latest headlines, features and analysis that matter to you by signing up to our various Manchester Evening News newsletters here. You can also get all your favourite content from the Manchester Evening News on WhatsApp. Click here to stay up to date with the us on X @mennewsdesk for all the latest stories and updates on breaking incidents from across the region and beyond, as well as on our Facebook page you prefer reading our stories on your phone, consider downloading the Manchester Evening News app here, and our newsdesk will make sure every time an essential story breaks, you'll be the first to hear about it.
Forbes
6 minutes ago
- Forbes
Sunday Conversation: Amy Berg On Her Stunning Jeff Buckley Documentary
The Nineties had a lot of seminal rock and alternative albums. Off the top of my head – Soundgarden, Superunknown; Hole, Live Through This; Portishead, Dummy; Nine Inch Nails, The Downward Spiral; of course, Nirvana's Nevermind; Radiohead's OK Computer and my personal favorite, The Afghan Whigs, Gentlemen. But a quarter of a century after the Nineties ended you can make a strong argument the single most enduring album of that fertile period for rock and alternative is Jeff Buckley's brilliant Grace, an album that now stands squarely in the pantheon of greatest albums ever. As Buckley's massive legacy grows exponentially larger, a la Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. Nick Drake, Amy Winehouse and others 28 years after his tragic drowning, Buckley has become an almost mythical figure in music for good reason. Imagine making one album and the likes of Chris Cornell, Alanis Morissette, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page sing your praises. One album that is near perfection and then tragically gone. Like so many, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg has been haunted by the profound depths of Grace. After years of trying, she has finally turned that fandom and fascination into a riveting must-see documentary, It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley. I spoke with Berg about the stunning peak into the life of a true genius and enigma. Steve Baltin: Congratulations on the film. Looking back on it now, do you think it was the record? Or was it the story that called to you? Amy Berg: I think it was the death and the posthumous impact. He stayed my favorite for so long. I just never got Jeff out of my system. So, his passing really affected me, I would have to say. He had such an angelic kind of voice, he spoke so deeply to me. The music is timeless. It felt unique and it was hard to describe why. So, I wanted to make a film about the enigma of this album and this person and how it encompassed so many different themes for him. Baltin: Did making the film solve the mystery a little bit of why this album speaks so much to you? Berg: I think it did. I don't know that it solved the mystery, but I think that it did what I set out for it to do, which was to create the experience of Grace in a visual hour and 46-minute sitting. So, I feel like that is where my joy landed on this. I felt like you could experience Baltin: I think part of what makes Grace special is there is a mystery to it. No one else in the history of the world that could have made this record. Berg: Right. But I think the added intimacy of his story helps to make it more tactile for me. Baltin: The film is wonderful, and I learned a lot about Jeff, even though I've been a fan and written about him extensively for years. It's an amazing story. Berg: Yeah, and I felt a similar way that I'm describing when I watched Montage of Heck the first time in a theater and I felt like I was inside of Nirvana's music and their world in a way that I missed so much. That's what I wanted to do. Baltin: It made me rethink him in a lot of ways and in good ways. But I've always seen parallels between him and Nick Drake, who's one of my favorites of all time. I've interviewed Joe Boyd, who was Nick's producer several times. Something he said to me always stood out; he said that he believed part of the reason Nick died was from a broken heart because nobody appreciated his music. It's interesting. Now, I start to think watching this film, maybe Jeff and Nick were opposites, because maybe it was the fact that everybody loved Jeff's music so much that tormented him. Fame is the most dangerous drug there is. Berg: Exactly. And that is a great way to put it. Yeah, I think that had a lot to do with his inner voice that was constantly gnawing at him. Baltin: What were some of the things that surprised you most about him? Berg: I learned a lot about him. I didn't know that much about him personally. And I think what surprised me was possibly how hard he was on himself about everything that was unresolved in his life. I think it makes sense when you consider how unresolved his relationship was with his father. That would make sense, and just how much remorse he had for his breakup with Rebecca, and the disagreements he had with his mother, how much that weighed on him. I think that probably surprised me a lot. The feelings that you experience when you listen to his songs after not hearing them for quite some time is so massive that I guess this was different because I was listening to it every day for many years. So, I look forward to having a break from it and coming back to it again because there is nothing like that feeling of just hearing 'Lover You Should've Come Over' after not hearing it for a couple of years. Baltin: I love the scene with his father's tribute concert and the way that was portrayed with the animation and everything. And I know several people who worked with him at Columbia and everyone had wonderful things to say. So that one scene where he was asked about his dad's music, and he's like next question, is so telling. Berg: I also want to say when you say things that surprised me about him, the other thing that I really spent time massaging this into the film and a few different scenes is the impulsiveness of his personality and his behavior was also something I didn't understand until I laid it into his life. It made his death make a lot more sense to me. He just was so impulsive that obviously the water looked so beautiful and there was no thought about the undercurrent or the dangerous aspects of jumping into the Wolf River. Baltin: That's such a complex thing. Do you feel like you have a better understanding of what happened with that? Because probably not even he knew what was happening at that time. Berg: No, but I've noticed since that a lot of the most empathetic artists that I've done some research on had similar behavioral traits of just thinking they were invincible and lacking impulse [control]. And I think that goes along with this empathetic persona. Baltin: Who are the artists you found to be similar? Berg: Chris Cornell, who he was very close with, would do somersaults downstairs and go from one balcony to another. And I've heard similar things about Kurt Cobain in terms of impulsive behavior. And other similarities, according to Andy Wallace, who produced Jeff's album, there were a lot of similar character traits that they had carried. Baltin: Chris said something so interesting to me once. He said that great frontmen don't come out of high school standouts or athletes or whatever, they come out of the outcasts. You have Jeff talking there about being bullied and I'm curious how that impacted him, because one of the things I found over the years is it is hard to make that adjustment from being the outcast to having everybody love you. Berg: Totally. And that there was a lot of evidence of that in his archive. Especially when he was featured in People magazine. He was obviously teased because he was little. He was slight. He was five-four and had very beautiful feminine delicate features. And one time, when his mom came to visit him, he was with Michael [Tighe], who was in the film, and they were walking back to his apartment, and he pulled Michael [in] and kissed him on the lips. And he said, "Look, mom, I can kiss a boy on the lips and nobody's going to make fun of me,' just trying to be fluid before that was a thing, I guess. Jeff initiated a lot of conversations about feminism and fluidity without having to say it, I loved all of that about him. We were in the midst of the Women's March when I first started making this film. That language was right in the forefront, and I was noticing so many similarities between Jeff's language and what the Women's March leaders were saying. He was 25 years earlier and already speaking in that way and it was beautiful. He had such an open mind. Baltin: Some people just feel like they don't fit in the world. I think sometimes people can be cursed with too much knowledge. Berg: Right, it's like Ben Harper saying that Jeff's feet didn't seem to be touching the ground and real life was scary in many ways to him. But I do believe he was trying to figure out how to have some balance at the end of his life. All the indications were there for that. Baltin: I'm not saying anything was intentional. Some people seem just too smart for the world. Berg: Right, but then there's also a theory that your 20s is for figuring that out and then in your 30s, you figure out how vulnerable you want to be, how exposed you want to be to the world. But there's so much beauty in his vulnerability.
