Dame Meera Syal reveals she was sexually assaulted by older actor who promised to boost her career

Dame Meera Syal has broken her silence about a sexual assault she suffered in her mid-twenties, carried out by an older Asian actor who lured her to his London home under the pretext of advancing her career. The 65-year-old 'Goodness Gracious Me' star was performing with a Covent Garden jazz band and close to leaving London when the man — nearly her father's age — drew her to what she believed would be a party. She never went to the police, not wanting to put her parents through a public criminal trial, and kept the secret for years.

During the attack Syal was paralysed by fear but managed to keep her legs clamped together, though the assault did not stop.

Rather than leave London, she connected with a circle of South Asian writers who pushed her towards writing, found her somewhere to live and, she says, 'healed me and awakened me politically.'

'It completely changed my life and the direction of my career,' Syal says, describing the assault as the turning point that set her on the path to the writing that made her a household name.