A REGULAR dancer on Top of the Pops said she felt safe with DJ Dave Lee Travis.

Dee Dee Wilde, who was on the show as part of Pan's People, told Southwark Crown Court Travis was just a professional "lovable big bear of a man" but sexual predator Jimmy Savile was "a rather nasty man".

As a Radio 1 DJ up to 1993, Travis was a Top of the Pops host and a contemporary of Savile.

Travis, 69, who is charged under his real name David Griffin, denies two counts of indecent assault and one of sexual assault.

Ms Wilde told the court: "You felt safe with Dave." When recalling Savile, she said: "I felt totally uncomfortable in the presence of Jimmy Savile and so did the other girls."

Ms Wilde, who set up Pan's People, told the jury that in those days the dancers sometimes put up with the odd "very flirtatious" man who thought they could "try it on, and so would try it on".

Having your bottom pinched was "just the norm", she recalled.

Ms Wilde said of Travis: "I liked him tremendously. He was a lovely man and a great guy and very funny as well. I did not see him do anything inappropriate in all the years I have known Dave."

Asked if she had seen him do anything sleazy, Ms Wilde added: "If that had been the case he would not have been my friend."

Gaynor Burton, who played the princess in the pantomime of Aladdin where one of the alleged assaults was said to have taken place, said she was not aware of any complaint about Travis.

Of Travis, she said: "He is a gentle giant, very fun and a true professional." The trial continues.