Jimmy Savile sexually abused us as girls, 10 women tell TV exposé

[Nye Bevan]

A string of women have given shocking accounts of how they were allegedly sexually abused by Jimmy Savile when they were young girls, it was revealed today.

The assaults occurred in public places including hospitals, schools and the BBC studios where the children’s TV presenter recorded his family shows, it is claimed.

The explosive accusations, ranging from rape to indecency, are made by up to 10 women who claim that their lives have been “destroyed and devastated” by the late DJ, knighted in 1990.

According to the allegations in a TV documentary screened next Wednesday, Savile abused girls as young as 13 at the height of his fame. The ITV programme will feature between five and 10 women claiming he was a sexual predator who took advantage of their vulnerablility.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/jimmy-savile-sexually-abused-us-as-girls-10-women-tell-tv-expos-8189637.html

Pretty obvious this is true. No way would that many women get together and make something like this up.

[fedsron2us]

1. Well true or not they are not going to make much difference to Savile

Last edited Sun Sep 30, 2012, 08:14 PM - Edit history (1)

as he is way beyond the reach of human law.

Given the seriousness of the allegations you do wonder why the accusations were not made public before he died.

Maybe it is because as the BBC found in its own Newsnight investigations certain key facts could not be substantiated.

Since the matter now can not be tested in a court of law it is just going to wind up as posthumous mud slinging

BTW I always hated Saville on TV as I always thought he was as phoney as a nine bob note

[dipsydoodle]

2. Apparently

nobody taking part in the program on the subject which is to be shown Wednesday night on ITV has been paid to do so.

[fedsron2us]

3. The fact they have not been paid yet

(nb - some might sell the story later once the furore gains legs) does not change the fact that it is essentially never going to be proved in a court of law as Saville is dead. It is just going to be trial by the media where we can all mull over whatever snippets are revealed and make judgements depending on whether one believes the allegations and whether one liked Saville or not. No doubt there will be some sort of clamour for him to be stripped of his knighthood but even that is likely to go nowhere since as far as I know that is only ever done to the living and Saville can hardly use the title where is now. Of course, we could wind back to the clock to the Restoration era, try him posthumously and then dig up his body so it can be displayed on a public gibbet like poor old Oliver Cromwell.

Anyway we will have to wait for the ITV documentary to see how much dirt there is to be chucked. No doubt it will provide blissful copy for our chums in the media who won't have to cover the dire unravelling of the world economy for another week to a dumb and uncomprehending public. Even better there is no danger of getting sued as Saville is safely tucked six foot under on a cliff in Scarborough

[Nye Bevan]

4. Once in a while a woman lies about being sexually abused, but it's pretty rare.

It's unheard of for 10 women to get together and agree to lie about being sexually abused, especially by as someone as popular as Sir Jimmy. Seems to me like he's become the British Jerry Sandusky.

[fedsron2us]

6. Doubtless you are correct

but there is no legal process for trying the dead and the allegations have come far too late to protect any children from Savile if they are true. Worse this case is not merely of historical interest since Savile has surviving relatives who will now certainly be hounded by the media though they probably had no knowledge of what Savile did or did not do sexually. Unless we want to bring back some sort of biblical system of retribution where a whole family is punished for an individuals deeds this is really just going to descend into another witch hunt where the trial takes place on Twitter, the TV and in the pages of the papers. To see how the media run amok in these public sex cases you only need to examine how poor Emily Forrest has been treated by the press after her husband absconded with Megan Stammers. Not only has her marriage collapsed about her but this poor woman is now having her life picked clean by the vultures of the media who have trawled through all her postings on social web sites to print family photographs and quotes from her musings on her life. Her treatment is one of the reasons that people should avoid social network sites like Facebook and Flickr like the plague. Ultimately all they do if your life suffers a spectacular public disaster is expose you to gaze of the purient and leads you to being hassled by all the weirdos on Twitter and the Internet.

[T_i_B]

22. Speaking of that sort of thing.....

I've made an off colour joke about Bernie Clifton & his ostrich on Twitter, not dissimilar to this one about Rod Hull. https://mobile.twitter.com/leonfletcher/status/257423836528652289/photo/1

Within miniutes I found out that Bernie Clifton lives in one of the neighbouring villages to me! I now fully expect to be chased across Derbyshire by an angry bloke on an Ostrich!

[oldironside]

23. Isn't he part of that goddawful England band?

Do us a favour, mate. If you see him tell him where he can shove his tuba.

[T_i_B]

24. I don't know if he's also with them when they are on the Kop at Hillsborough....

....to be honest I don't sit right at the back of the Kop when I go to Hillsborough to watch Sheffield Wednesday. As such I don't notice who the actual band members are.

[dipsydoodle]

5. You could be right there.

I only mentioned the non payment bit ,with regard to the documentary, because that was mentioned in a tv news discussion of the subject.

I'm not sure of the constructiveness of this anyway. He's dead so why not just leave it there.

[fedsron2us]

7. Having read around the story a bit

I suppose my main question is that given the stories concerning Savile and child abuse have supposedly been circulating widely in show business and the media since the 1960s why did the press not carry out an investigation into the matter and publish the accusations while Savile was alive so he could have been tried in a court of law for his alleged crimes. At the very least waiting for him to pop his cloggs before making the revelations suggests gross moral cowardice on the part of TV and the papers, including the Guardian, whose Julie Bindel was out leading the lynch mob with her noose this morning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/jimmy-savile-abused-children-documentary

It is all very well starting the hue and cry once the perpetrator is safe in the ground it is quite another matter to have the balls to take them on in life. If Savile was a paedophile and got away with it until his death then the press who are savaging him now are as culpable as anyone else who knew about the crime but did nothing. The sordid reality is that is probably more about money and knocking out cheap copy than doing something constructive.

BTW there must be a few well known early 1970s rock stars who will now be worried about their antics in LA during that era coming to light

[dipsydoodle]

8. a few well known early 1970s rock stars

amongst others. I'd guess no reasonable cause to suspect they were under 16 would be the main defense.

[Nye Bevan]

9. I think the answer is the draconian UK libel laws (nt)

[fedsron2us]

11. If it is true it can not be libel

so the papers can not really use that excuse for their inaction. They had the means to nail Savile but presumably chose not to do so because the cost benefit was not deemed to work in their favour. The press are quite as cynical in these matters as the police and the abusers. Ultimately, it all appears to be knocking out the best selling copy at the lowest price and then covering it all with a patina of assumed outrage.

[LeftishBrit]

10. If this is true, then it is still constructive for the women to have their abuse recognized...

even if there is nothing that can be done in terms of punishing the culprit.

Of course, 'innocent till proved guilty' applies even if the person is no longer living, but I think it's worth an investigation.

[fedsron2us]

12. I suppose the alleged victims will have the benefit of their story being aired in public at last

and doubtless a few will pick up a few quid in compensation from flogging their story to the press. However, it will not change the fact that Savile, if guilty, escaped justice in his lifetime and that any public vengeance will probably be visited on proxies who may well be simply be smeared by association thanks to the ill fortune of job or family relationship. Already reading around the subject you can find a lot of unsubstantiated tittle tattle about other dead celebs from that era being aired with absolutely no supporting evidence provided. I can guarantee their will be more humble innocent living victims before this is over. Given that the documentary has not even been on TV yet it is amazing how fast the mob has gathered and the nooses have been dangled over the branches of the hanging tree.

You can not help wondering why papers like the Guardian have not shown the same enthusiasm for exposing and pursuing recent sex abuse scandals in Rochdale, Derby and Sheffield where there are current victims who need protecting. It seems that, similar to sex abusers, the press like the the easy meat such as the dead Savile or the stupid, narcissistic Jeremy Forrest and his infatuated under age girl friend Megan Stammers rather than chasing the hard cases. As I said before the British press on both left and right of the spectrum who are supposed to champion investigative journalism have a lot of questions to answer here.

[truebrit71]

13. How's about that then???

...

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Jimmy Savile named in Jersey children's home abuse inquiry

A States of Jersey police spokesman said the allegation was made by a former Haut de la Garenne resident against Sir Jimmy in 2008, with the assault alleged to have occurred in the mid 1970s.

A police spokesman said: "During the course of the States of Jersey Police's historic abuse investigation a complaint of indecent assault said to have occurred during the 1970s at the former children's home Haut de la Garenne was received.

"The allegation was investigated but there was insufficient evidence to proceed."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-19802630

Interesting that it did come up. You might not have expected Savile to have any connection to a Jersey children's home at all.

[fedsron2us]

15. Favourite topic on the Icke forum

http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/55533-death-of-a-showman-jimmy-saville-1926-2011

Savile has many threads devoted to him there going back a number of years. They attempt to link him with a wider range of alleged offences and anyone from the Krays to the Yorkshire Ripper. Strangely though it is clear Savile's predilection was for teenage girls like so many of the pop sexual predators of that era Icke bizarrely thinks he was gay.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Trying to find where Icke got that from, I found this:

Jimmy Savile turns to Fox Hayes for action against The Sun

17 March 2008

...
On 1 March, Savile’s solicitors said, The Sun carried a photograph of the former Top of the Pops presenter allegedly visiting the Jersey home.

This was followed with a series of articles. One asserted that Savile was unwilling to assist with the police investigation and another that he admitted having visited the home. The Sun also criticised Savile for being unprepared to “go some way to fixing it for the victims”.

Last week (14 March), Savile said the entire coverage linking him with the events at the children’s home was repugnant.
...
Fox Hayes, which has instructed barrister Jonathan Crystal of Cloisters, added that Savile has no connection to the events that have taken place at the Jersey children’s home and has no information that might assist the authorities.

http://www.thelawyer.com/jimmy-savile-turns-to-fox-hayes-for-action-against-the-sun/131780.article

(and I now see someone's added that as a source to Savile's Wikipedia entry in the last 24 hours; I can't yet find out what happened, legally)

[fedsron2us]

17. Given Saviles status as DJ. TV Personality and Charity Worker

I expect there are quite a lot of photographs taken of him surrounded by kids at hospitals schools and childrens homes all round the UK.As he was a regular visitor to Jersey it would not be that strange for the same to happen there. Doubtless if he was making sexual advances to young teenage girls he might have tried it on there as he appears to have done elsewhere. However, it does not necessarily follow that he knew about or was involved in sex crimes committed by others at Haut de la Garenne. It is quite possible that whatever abuse he may have carried out was separate from what they were doing. Assuming all crimes are linked is the sort of dodgy thinking that is common place in Icke world (ie such as the assumption that because Savile was a Yorkshireman and lived in Leeds he must have been an accomplice of the Yorkshire Ripper). This sort of guilt by association is what happens when allegations are made posthumously and there is no due process of law that can be gone through in a court to try and sift the truth from the fantastic. Again it is a pity that the press and the show business people who are so keen to put the boot into Savile now did not have the guts to speak up years ago when he might have been prosecuted and the evidence tested. At the very least they could have helped warn off parents and children about Savile's proclivities.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. But look at how Savile reached for the lawyers

when The Sun was apparently just saying he didn't cooperate with the police. Libel laws do a lot to keep people who aren't direct witnesses quiet.

[fedsron2us]

19. Newspapers have lawyers too

I simply do not believe that Jimmy Savile who was essentially just a TV personality and DJ had more financial and legal clout than Rupert Murdoch or any of the other big newspaper owners. Either Savile was extremely slippery and they could never get the evidence or more likely they could not be bothered and simply decided to wait until he was dead as it would be cheaper to run the story once he could no longer sue. This quote from a Daily Telegraph article probably sums up the prevailing attitude

Back in the early 1990s, I had a good friend who was an investigative reporter with the Sun. She spent weeks following up reports of Savile’s inappropriate behaviour with young girls; eventually, though, the paper’s management told her that the material she had assembled would not be printed, “because it is not what the public wants to read”.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9579077/Was-Jimmy-Savile-too-big-a-star-to-challenge.html

To be put it bluntly they simply did not care.

As such the tabloids are just as culpable as the BBC who they are now so roundly slagging off for failing to stop Savile's alleged crimes.

[Nye Bevan]

20. I watched the documentary yesterday. Disgusting. Absolutely no doubt that he preyed on young girls.

Esther Rantzen was in tears after seeing the evidence against him.

[fedsron2us]

21. That would not be the same Esther Rantzen

Last edited Fri Oct 5, 2012, 05:44 PM - Edit history (4)

who was married to the BBC producer Desmond Wilcox. She was a big wheel at the BBC in the 1970s and 1980s after she metaphorically stabbed Bernard Braden in the back and stole the format of his pioneering TV show. Strange how she claims to have known nothing about Savile's predilection for teenage girls even though he made little secret of it in his 1970s autobiography

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/jimmy-saviles-autobiography-shock-as-pages-1359536

Frankly I found her crocodile tears nauseating particularly as she was clearly trying to steal the limelight from genuine victims.

The case has also revealed an alarming lack of understanding amongst the British public about how the criminal law works. The fact people have convinced themselves that Savile is guilty does not mean that the authorities are now going to be able to prosecute all and sundry who were associated with him. Even if his friends and work colleagues may have suspected what was going on they are only likely to be convicted of being accessories if it can be proved beyond all reasonable doubt in court that they actively aided and abetted the commission of a crime or took positive steps to cover it up. Mere passive negligence is usually not grounds enough for bringing a criminal prosecution. Of course, the BBC would have had a duty of care for people on its premises so they might be liable to be sued in a civil suit if it can be proven that they did not take reasonable steps to protect of children in its buildings. However, any damages arising would almost certainly end up being paid by the license payers not the people who worked at Broadcasting House all those years ago. I suspect few of those railing against Savile on the internet realise that they are most likely to be the ones who pick up the bills for his alleged crimes

As for the press it is clear they are more concerned about using the Savile scandal as a club to beat the BBC and to attack any proposals that the Leveson enquiry might come out with regarding protecting peoples privacy than seeking redress for the victims of abuse. In fact there hypocrisy is staggering since there was ample opportunity for the press to expose Savile in the pre Leveson world but they chose to do nothing. Now Savile is dead and beyond prosecution it seems that they are now casting about to try and smear other celebs from that era with the same crime. What is particularly sad is that the journalists involved do not seem to realise that most people under 30 years of age do not have the faintest idea who these individuals are. In may ways it is a watershed in measuring the decline of popular journalism in the Uk.