[Arneldo]

It has emerged that Big Brother favourite Pete Bennett was molested as a child.


Amidst a troubled year when the Tourette's sufferer spent a year being taken in and out of hospital while being prone to fits, 14-year-old Pete told his mother Anne that he had been abused.


Speaking to Heat magazine, she said: "He isn't a hateful person, but he hates the person who did that to him. I knew the minute I saw him that something bad had happened, because he was white as a sheet and having a fit. He told me that he had been touched inappropriately. I didn't go to the police because Pete was too ill to testify. I dealt with it in my own way and I made sure the person responsible never came near Pete again."


Pete's mother also spoke about her son's referral to a special school for kids with problems and how his best friend Julian was killed on a railway despite Pete trying to save his life.


"It totally devastated him," she said. "He was so low and vulnerable and, like vultures cashing in, he was offered drugs. Thankfully he had a dream that told him to stop."


But charismatic Pete appears to have his troubles behind him as he remains completely smitten by brattish Nikki on the Channel 4 show and is favourite to win the competition with odds of 1/5.

NTL