Jimmy Savile rape accusations [Hall, Harris, Roache, et al]

crunchyblanket · Oct 14, 2012

I really need to revisit the Theroux documentary and his blog most. All I remember of that documentary was being left with an overwhelming feeling of being unsettled.

Me too.

The most depressing thing about this whole sad, sick affair is how many people still think the victims are making the whole thing up. Are we really more inclined to believe that the victims are 'crying rape' than that they actually were molested? Depressing as hell.

Flicka · Oct 14, 2012

Priene said:
In this case, he said the girl looked 15 or possibly 16. In the days before Labour introduced the 'position of trust' law that made sex with under-18s illegal for such adults, it would have been a brave call by the producer. She could easily have been 16 -- perhaps she actually was -- in which case Savile would have been in the clear and the producer would have been looking for new employment.

This was what I was thinking too – I think a lot of people are thinking about the current (or even American) legal situation and forgetting it isn't necessarily that simple. It was different then - and not all legal systems considers sex with a minor rape per se, and what is a minor also differs from one legal system to another (historically and geographically). That is not to excuse anyone who didn't speak up (and certainly not JS himself; I'm almost ready to start believing in hell just for him), just to remind us that maybe some people actually did speak up, but it didn't do any good.

Attitudes have changed a lot in the past decades. When I went to school, there were teachers well-known for inappropriately touching girls (prepubescent girls even) and the attitude was just "well, stay out of his way." Today that wouldn't be tolerated for a second.

Priene · Oct 19, 2012

Update: police say the number of potential victims of Savile's abuse is now over 200, and that their investigations involves a number of living people.

The head of the NSPCC, Peter Watt, said it now appeared that Savile was "one of the most prolific sex offenders the NSPCC has ever come across".

The children's charity said it had received more than 136 "directly relating to allegations" against Savile that have been passed to police.

writeontime · Oct 19, 2012

Thanks for the update. I can't help but wonder about the social networks in which Savile moved.

This is all a hypothesis but I do wonder about the nature of these networks, whether they share certain 'proclivities' and whether these networks were powerful enough to extend protection.

JimmyB27 · Oct 19, 2012

crunchyblanket said:
Me too.

The most depressing thing about this whole sad, sick affair is how many people still think the victims are making the whole thing up. Are we really more inclined to believe that the victims are 'crying rape' than that they actually were molested? Depressing as hell.

I could understand and forgive if it had been someone like, oh I don't know, Rolf Harris say. In that case, I'd have a hard time believing it - at least at first. But the moment I heard this story about Savile, I just immediately thought 'Yep, doesn't surprise me at all'.

crunchyblanket · Oct 19, 2012

JimmyB27 said:
I could understand and forgive if it had been someone like, oh I don't know, Rolf Harris say. In that case, I'd have a hard time believing it - at least at first. But the moment I heard this story about Savile, I just immediately thought 'Yep, doesn't surprise me at all'.

Don't even hypothetically bring Rolf into this. Rolf's a damn saint.

aruna · Oct 19, 2012

OK ut's the Daily Fail but this account by his niece tells how he did it; and is horrifically believable:

jilly61 · Oct 20, 2012

That is really sick. And tragic that the family could put money before protecting their own young ones. Luckily she was there to protect her own daughter.

Priene · Oct 22, 2012

The first corporate casualty? BBC's Newsnight Editor, Peter Rippon, has to step aside pending an investigation of the shelving of the Savile item. His explanation of events

is inaccurate or incomplete in some respects.

My feeling is that the Newsnight investigation is a minor detail in the Savile scandal (the man himself being well dead by that point) but it's looking likely that someone will have to pay for the BBC's mistakes over Savile, and Rippon looks like an easy sacrifice.

Torgo · Oct 22, 2012

Warren Ellis has written a good article.

Priene · Oct 22, 2012

Torgo said:
Warren Ellis has written a good article.

That particular allegation is one I've heard once or twice before. It was so weird and disgusting that I thought I wouldn't even mention it in this thread, but there's always been the nagging suspicion that there might be something in it.

Celia Cyanide · Oct 22, 2012

Yeah, I wouldn't really call that a "good article." Just recollections of gossip being passed around while drinking.

Torgo · Oct 22, 2012

Celia Cyanide said:
Yeah, I wouldn't really call that a "good article." Just recollections of gossip being passed around while drinking.

I like Warren and his drunken gossip recollections. The reason I think this is a good article is that these are the kind of conversations that were evidently going on all the time. This was what loads of people were saying to each other in bars and offices for decades.

It's one thing to say 'oh, everyone had heard the rumours' and another thing to get an insight into just how extreme and strongly-stated those rumours were. Reading that article, I got a powerful sense of the kind of things you'd chat about in Omelas.

Priene · Oct 22, 2012

Torgo said:
I like Warren and his drunken gossip recollections. The reason I think this is a good article is that these are the kind of conversations that were evidently going on all the time. This was what loads of people were saying to each other in bars and offices for decades.

I remember a conversation I had back in the late eighties with a friend who knew someone (or maybe knew someone who knew someone, I don't remember) who worked in a hospital in Leeds. They said that Savile was absolutely hated by the staff at the hospital and only tolerated because of the donations he brought in. I'm not sure if this was the first time I heard an allegation that Savile was a rapist, but it would have been about that time.

Priene · Oct 26, 2012

The Met says the number of alleged victims is now above 300. It now turns out that at least seven took complaints about the man to the police while he was still alive. None led to a prosecution, obviously. It's amazing that he escaped a larger investigation which surely would have uncovered this huge number of victims, which means the police are going to have some awkward questions to answer/

There was a police inquiry into an indecent assault on BBC premises at Shepherd's Bush more than 30 years ago. I'm not sure how this can be squared with BBC management's earlier insistence that they had no knowledge of any misbehaviour by Savile.

writeontime · Nov 4, 2012

Andrew O'Hagen has written an article in the LRB about Savile and the BBC.

Link: http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/v34/n21/andrew-ohagan/light-entertainment

Shakesbear · Nov 4, 2012

Thanks for the link writeontime. Very interesting article that puts Savile into perspective.

RichardGarfinkle · Nov 4, 2012

writeontime said:
Andrew O'Hagen has written an article in the LRB about Savile and the BBC.

Link: http://cdn.lrb.co.uk/v34/n21/andrew-ohagan/light-entertainment

Very disturbing but well worth reading. It might be triggery for some.

writeontime · Nov 4, 2012

I'm still reeling from Andrew O'Hagen's article. It does put the entire issue into perspective but I'm still somewhat gobsmacked to read about the BBC's institutional culture prior to their bringing Savile on board. It's disturbing...

Old Hack · Nov 4, 2012

It's very disturbing and unpleasant, but it was how things were at the time. Much as things were far more difficult (by which I mean sexist, racist and dismissive) during the 1980s than I care to remember.

fireluxlou · Nov 4, 2012

I'm sure everyone knows Peter Sutcliffe and Jimmy Saville were friends.

Prof Wilson — dubbed a real-life version of TV’s Cracker — said: “At first sight the suggestion that Savile might be connected with the crimes committed by Sutcliffe will seem far-fetched.

“Yet predatory paedophiles and serial killers are the awful products of common forces which, in their case, were allowed to develop unchecked.

“So the links aren’t that far-fetched at all.

“Savile and Sutcliffe came from the same area and some of Sutcliffe’s crimes took place very close to where Savile lived.

“Both inhabited a world where men were encouraged to take what they wanted by force and where girls and women were seen as things to be used and then discarded. They used sex and violence instead of intimacy to express their inner demons — the need to be powerful and to control girls and women

Richard McCann [son of one of Sutcliffe's victims] said: “If Savile was party to any murder the public and the families of the victims have a right to know about it. It should be investigated. If an expert has said this needs looking into then there should be an investigation into their relationship and I would welcome police findings.”

Mr McCann met Savile weeks before he died — and thinks the cigar-chomping Top of the Pops legend could have had personality traits similar to Sutcliffe’s.

More things at the source like about how Saville compared his personality to psychopaths, and his obsession with his dead mother, plus how he wheeled dead people into mortuaries.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...-Ripper-Peter-Sutcliffe-have-been-linked.html

Some speculation is that Freddy Royale in Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy is based on Saville.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy:_Three_Tales_of_Chemical_Romance

eyeblink · Nov 4, 2012

A blog post by Abigail Nussbaum which does take issue with parts of the O'Hagan article: here, with a lot of comments to it. It's written from a non-Brit perspective - Nussbaum is Israeli.

Priene · Nov 7, 2012

Apparently notorious child rapist Savile had the job of organising Charles Windsor's party guests at Kensington Palace.

Savile used to rub his lips up the arms of Charles's young female assistants as a greeting.

Charles reportedly sent him a box of cigars and a pair of gold cufflinks on his 80th birthday with a note that read: "Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that."

Savile's 80th birthday came several years after Louis Theroux's documentary had unveiled Savile as a self-admitted criminal and an all-round sleazeball.

And Savile was also a suspect in the Yorkshire Ripper case, though to be fair so was half of Yorkshire.

Haggis · Nov 13, 2012

Mod note:

Elmo posts moved to their own thread. Tangentially related but they didn't seem happy here.

Thanks, folks.

Priene · Nov 15, 2012

Former Radio One DJ and 1970's personality Dave Lee Travis has been arrested on suspicion of committing sexual offences by the Savile police team, though the alleged offences are unrelated to Savile himself.

Jimmy Savile rape accusations [Hall, Harris, Roache, et al]

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