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How we knighted the world's worst Paedophile

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Recently, I watched a chilling documentary about the man who groomed a nation. I have no idea how much news of the Jimmy Saville affair reached other countries, but it is widely understood that the level of abuse perpetrated by this man is among the worst in the world.
So how did a man with an OBE and a Knighthood do all this under our very noses?

Saville was a celebrity. During my childhood, he was ubiquitous on TV, presenting the popular 'Jim'll fix it', a show in which children got their wishes granted. I wrote in to that show. Most of us did. He voiced adverts, safety items - 'clunk clip, every trip' (that one was about putting on seatbelts) and periodically presented 'Top of the Pops', a popular music chart show. In addition, he was a prolific fundraiser for charities, did voluntary work at hospitals, etc. So, an all round great guy, yes?

Well, no. During his many years at the BBC and in the hospitals and at children's homes he so generously fundraised for, he was systematically abusing young girls and boys. He used his position and his charitable works to keep the silence of those who knew.

Because people DID know. Questions first arose in the early 70s when a young girl who had been in the Top of the Pops' audience committed suicide. In her suicide letter, she stated she had been abused by a DJ on the show, but didn't name him. Saville wasn't the only presenter at the time, there was no real evidence, but suspicions were raised. Saville flirted with the staff, many women found him creepy and over-inclined to touch, but in those days, that was something women were expected to put up with.
There was enough suspicion around Saville's behaviour that, in the mid-70s when Saville began filming Jim'll Fix it, staff were told not to leave him alone with the kids. Of course, one has to wonder why he was presenting it in the first place if there were concerns, but he was popular with viewers and the proof wasn't there.
Meanwhile, he volunteered as a porter in Leeds hospital, and later at Stoke Mandeville, a hospital he fundraised for, to the tune of 10 million pounds. His status as a benefactor and TV personality bought him access to patients, an access he abused time and time again. Victims didn't speak out. This was Jimmy Saville, a man who did so much for the hospital. Who would believe a young kid? Well, that's what he told them.
Those who knew, or strongly suspected the truth were told, roughly the same, along the lines of, 'do you want to spread rumours about the guy who has given so much of his time, raised so much money? My lawyers will destroy you'.
In the 70s, he got his OBE.
In the 80s, he developed a close relationship with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Whatever we might think of that woman, politically, her actions regarding Saville cannot be excused. When, years later, the extent of Saville's crimes were revealed, the number of people in senior positions who knew what he was preclude the remote possibility that she genuinely didn't know anything about the suspicions surrounding him. Yet, in a move which would have been bizarre even if their weren't so many questions regarding his character, she put him in charge of Broadmoor, maximum security facility for what used to be called the 'criminally insane'. Apart from anything else, he had no qualifications to run such a facility and his only experience was as voluntary entertainments officer, there. He ran the place into the ground, and, of course, as was revealed later, sexually abused the female patients.
Thatcher nominated Saville for a Knighthood. He eventually got it in 1990 after the nomination had been rejected 3 times by other members of the house of commons. Because they knew what he was. Nobody can tell me Thatcher didn't.

Saville continued with the fix it show until 1993 at the BBC and appeared on the final episode of Top of the Pops' in 2006. But by the 90s, suspicion and rumours had grown to the extent that his popularity with the public had waned. UK culture was changing. At the start of Saville's career, older white men dominated television presenting. It wasn't unusual for a man in his 40s, as Saville was when he started on Top of the Pops', to present a programme for young people. Children's television had more female presenters, but I remember far more older white males than women. When women did present children's shows, it was said they were there 'for the Dads'. Most family shows, gameshows and the like, were presented by older men, usually ageing comedians. Women were there to 'decorate' the prizes. So, Saville didn't stand out.
In the 90s, things were changing. The BBC took the opportunity to quietly drop Saville from programming, but he still had his hospital involvement, he still ran marathons for charity and he still wasn't being held to account for any crimes.
Saville had friends in high places. In Government, on the police force. He was good at what he did. By all accounts he was a thoroughly unpleasant character, but by this time, he could have taken so many of those who looked the other way down with him, he understandably thought he was untouchable.
And in life, he was right. He died in 2012. The BBC televised an obsequious tribute to him. A year later, it would be revealed that he sexually abused hundreds of people around the country, at the BBC, in hospitals, etc. Even on the set of Jim'll Fix It. The extent of his abuse over decades shocked a nation, but it wasn't just what he did. It was what others didn't do. This was a story of cover-ups and collusion from the very top down.
What Saville did was unforgivable, and so was what other people didn't do. The BBC played down it's own culpability. Lots of talk about 'regret' and 'different times'.
Thatcher was an elderly stroke victim at the time the news broke. She couldn't answer questions. I wish she could have.
Following the Saville revelations, police investigation known as 'operation Yew tree' uncovered several other TV personalities who had been abusers. Some were jailed.
Lessons have been learned. But the culture of the time, a time so many claim was simpler, with more 'freedom', was in part responsible. How women were perceived, how they were expected to accept unwanted attention in the workplace, how we viewed TV personalities and how easy it was for people who had no business there to gain access to the most vulnerable in society.
From a personal perspective, it's hard to see the years of my childhood with the rose-tinted spectacles removed. It's hard to think, when I see on a documentary, a victim recounting what happened on the fix it set, that had my letters been chosen, that could have been me.
It's a stark realisation that it WASN'T better then. We didn't have fewer bad guys, they just got away with it more.

RE: How we knighted the world's worst Paedophile

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A stark reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Powerful people around the world have been doing such things since humans first walked. It doesn't seem to matter the race, religion, sex, social status, wealth, or nationality. Those with power above and over others will abuse it. Usually, it doesn't matter how that power manifests. It could family power, personal strength, size, clout, even beauty or charm. Rich or poor.

An many people follow and fear the powerful. It defies logic in many cases.

What's that popular phrase: Power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

For the most part that is a completely true statement.

RE: How we knighted the world's worst Paedophile

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I couldn't agree more. What l didn't say in the rather long post was that Saville had a residence, here in the town where I now live. He was buried here with great ceremony. When the full extent of his behaviour was revealed, his headstone was removed and destroyed, but despite the Council indicating that his remains had been moved, they were not, because he requested to be buried at an angle facing the sea and that his remains should be encased in concrete. To dig him up would have cost thousands.
Locals did not regard him with fondness. In the 70s, he was very friendly with the mayor of the town, who had a penchant for young boys.
The documentary I referred to was actually dramatised with some actual footage of the man. The dramatised sections of action which took place in Scarborough were not filmed here, though distant shots of the sea front were used. They couldn't film here. Saville had a distinctive look and the actor who played him was chillingly good and made to look so similar that the sight of a Saville lookalike here would simply not have been wanted, since it is likely many surviving victims are still here.

RE: How we knighted the world's worst Paedophile
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RE: How we knighted the world's worst Paedophile

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I had never heard of this man before, Emma, but it is clear he was not a man of good character. And his corruption was enabled at the highest levels of society. Thankfully you avoided his clutch that can only be seen as a sign of good luck for you but not so much for others. Lance is correct Savile's headstone should not have been destroyed, but it should have been moved to a different location along with his remains. Thousands is not a lot of money in a campaign for justice for those violated by a deceitful man and his enablers.

Lance is also correct Savile was not convicted of any crime and he should've been, and still can be. The dead should not simply be absolved of their deviations because they are no longer among the living. Their actions are still alive in the hearts of those people's lives they forever destroyed.

Posthumous trials are not unheard of. In fact the posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky was a controversial and unprecedented legal proceeding in Russia, where a dead man was tried and convicted of tax evasion. It was also the first time in Russian history that a dead person was prosecuted. Of course Magnitsky was not guilty of tax evasion he had merely made public the corruption of Putin's Russia, a revelation for which he was tortured and killed in prison.

The Russian government defended the trial as legal and necessary to uphold the law and the Trump administration tried to claim it was the reason for the discussion with Putin about adoption of Russian orphans on that fateful plane ride back to the White House.

Things truly weren't all that great back then for many people.

RE: How we knighted the world's worst Paedophile

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They removed the headstone because it was being vandalised. He was buried in a municipal cemetery and the families of others interred there weren't overly keen on people tramping through to mess about with Saville's grave.
It was a big, ostentatious headstone. They could have stored it somewhere, but what would have been the point? His surviving relatives didn't want it and they didn't want it put up anywhere else. If they had moved his body, they would have had to put it somewhere. No other jurisdiction would have taken it. You can't just bury a body where you like, here. If he had been buried in a 'secret location', you would have had people speculating about where it was.

There is no chance he was innocent. It's very rare to have a case like this where you can actually say that. It's not like Michael Jackson, where the debate still rages on. In the Saville case, there are just far too many victims and too many people who knew and turned a blind eye. There has been an extensive investigation which was started prior to his death. Victims had been coming forward, but it was his death that opened the floodgates.
The laws here, unfortunately, do not permit the dead to be tried. The closest we can get is an examination of the facts without a verdict. The case can still be investigated, victims can still report to the police, but there can't be a formal trial. And to be honest, given all the publicity, you would never find a jury that was without bias/ignorant of the case (always a problem with celebrity trials).
I did read somewhere that compensation was paid to victims out of his Estate, but I would have to look that up.

Absolutely, the time for justice is when the perpetrator is living, but in Saville's case, it didn't happen, despite mounting evidence before he died. I think if he had lived a little longer, it would have made it to court. The victims, however, want their story to still be told, to help prevent it happening again.