BBC and Sir Jimmy Savile

The BBC is gearing up for claims against the organization of millions of pounds by sexually harassed victims of Sir Jimmy Savile, a well respected program presenter and a former disc jokey. He was involved in family television entertainment, popular music radio and also in raising funds for children.

His most famous programs were Top of the Pops and Jim Will Fix It. He was the first and the last presenter of long running Top of the Pops. Between 1975 and 1994 he presented Jim’ll Fix It, a popular television program in which he arranged for the wishes of viewers, mainly children, to come true. Jim who died a year ago at the age of 85 was awarded an OBE in 1971 and Knighted by the queen in 1990.

Disturbed girls

During the early 1960s he co-hosted New Musical Express Poll Winners’ Concert, annually held at Empire Pool, Wembley, with acts including The Beatles, Cliff Richard and The Shadows.

In his autobiography he has claimed to have sex in trains, boats, planes, bushes, fields, corridors, doorways, floors, chairs, desks and various places. But Jimmy’s colourful career which spreads over more than 60 years is in tatters as many women have come forward to make claims against him for sexual harassment. According to reports, women who are now in their 40s and 50s were harassed when they were underaged.

The claims were aired two weeks ago in an ITV documentary ‘Exposure’ made by a former police child protection officer Mark Williams-Thomas.

One women claimed that he asked her to perform sex acts on him in the back of his car. She was given sweets, cigarettes, music records and tickets for his television shows. One woman claimed that he raped her at the age of 14 at a BBC building in the mid 70s. Other women claim that they were sexually assaulted by some other members of his team at the BBC. Some of the women say they were assaulted by Savile at Duncroft, a government approved school for disturbed girls.

He sometimes asked a girl to polish his Rolls Royce and gives her an outing. It means good food, cigarettes and rides down the lane, a woman has written online. She further writes, “Sadly, it also meant one had to put up with being mauled and groped when he pulled into a lay-by some five miles along the road. I wasn’t the only girl that Sir Jimmy favoured with this either. In fact, he often tried to press me to ‘go further’. When she eventually complied, she claimed, he invited her backstage for his shows. There, she claimed, two celebrities abused other minors in the dressing room.

Dressing room

“His hands wandered incessantly; he had absolutely no qualms whatever about anyone of the girls seeing what he was doing to any of the others.” The other star, she said, had full sex with one of the other girls in the dressing room “into which we were all crammed”. Another victim, Fiona said she was introduced to Savile at Duncroft in 1974 when she was 14, she was indecently assaulted by him “dozens of times”. She said: “As a mature woman now, I look back and I think I was actually raped on that first occasion.” A third said Savile abused her in an alcove in his dressing room, hidden from view by a curtain. She was 14.

A TV director who allegedly reported Savile to BBC bosses decades ago - when he caught the star having sex with a 15 - or 16-year-old girl in his dressing room - revealed he was ignored. David Nicolson, 67, who had been a director on Jim’ll Fix It, said he made several attempts to expose Savile to the BBC, but was told: ‘That’s Jimmy’ and ‘that’s the way it goes’.

In 2007, Surrey Police received a complaint from a woman who said she was indecently assaulted by Savile at Duncroft in the 1970s. The allegation was investigated but no further action was taken. Once Jimmy was ‘about to be exposed’ by one newspaper, but to prevent its publication he gave an interview to a rival tabloid which had the effect of stopping the negative piece. On another occasion, when another tabloid called him after deciding to expose him he said, ‘Well you could run that story, but if you do there goes the funds that come in to Stoke Mandeville - do you want to be responsible for the drying up of the charity donations’. And they backed down.

Jimmy had raised millions of pounds over the years for his pet cause, Stoke Mandeville Hospital. But a former patient called Laura told BBC Radio 5 live that nurses in the hospital had warned her about Savile’s visits, suggesting she pretend to be asleep to avoid his attention.

“There was chatter and miserable faces about the fact that Jimmy Savile was due to do what they called his particular ward round that day, and they were talking to themselves about which one would be, as they put it, ‘the chosen one’ to go off with him to his little room,” she said. “I just remember the nurse tucking me in and saying, ‘The best thing you can do is stay in bed and don’t ask to be put in a wheelchair today and pretend to be asleep’.”

Last year the BBC decided to drop a Newsnight item investigating allegations of sexual abuse by Savile, claiming it will damage the reputation of the institution. But now the BBC director-general George Entwistle, offered a ‘profound and heartfelt apology’ to the alleged victims of Sir Jimmy Savile’s sexual abuse.

Sexual abuse

The BBC could be sued for millions of Pounds as the scandal around the Jimmy Saville sex claims grew even larger. Police are now investigating 120 separate lines of inquiry over allegation of sexual abuse by Savile. It is thought there could be at least 30 victims. There will be many law suits against institutions that have links with Jimmy’s alleged crimes. It is unfortunate for the victims that Jimmy is no longer here to face charges.

Although he is dead and gone there is a public outcry to strip Jimmy of his knighthood. The University of Bedfordshire who awarded Savile a doctorate in 2009 has already withdrawn the honour.

TV and radio programmes are fun. But hope now parents in the UK will make more efforts to protect their children from predators when attending such events.