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Owzabout That Then? The Jimmy Savile Revelations & Aftermath

What a total failure to protect you. Makes my blood boil. What was that social worker thinking? Kids have been murdered in those circumstances, when SWs have been fobbed off.

You'll remember Victoria Climbié, who wasn't visited at a dangerous time because the social worker stayed away after she was told there was an outbreak of scabies in the family home.

At least the teachers believed you. They saw you every day and knew you weren't lying.

We did a safeguarding course at work many years ago. The person running the course said that the social workers who visited Victoria didn't have the rights to force entry. So when they did turn up, if they weren't allowed in, they just went home. No idea how true that was, but I suspect it was more true that we would like it to be.

Saville's focus on children in care must have been deliberately planned. These were children who were probably already wary/suspicious of authority and wouldn't have wanted to bring up what happened. And sadly as so many horror stories came out later, they may have been abused by other people in the care homes already.
 
We did a safeguarding course at work many years ago. The person running the course said that the social workers who visited Victoria didn't have the rights to force entry. So when they did turn up, if they weren't allowed in, they just went home. No idea how true that was, but I suspect it was more true that we would like it to be.

Saville's focus on children in care must have been deliberately planned. These were children who were probably already wary/suspicious of authority and wouldn't have wanted to bring up what happened. And sadly as so many horror stories came out later, they may have been abused by other people in the care homes already.

Yup, in the Climbié case the social worker who was fobbed off had a huge caseload and was already stressed up. Being fobbed off is a pointer to things being not right but one wonders how helpful the line manager was when it happened.

As I've mentioned, I worked in children's homes and saw how vulnerable the residents were to any kind of abuse you can think of. They liked to come across as streetwise and smart, when they were just the opposite. They just couldn't see that they were being exploited. Sex with older men was what teenage girls (and boys) did. It was maddening.

The police were endlessly patient and helpful. It's sad to hear how useless the Yorkshire police have been about this sort of crime. They could certainly have done better.
 
It's sad to hear how useless the Yorkshire police have been about this sort of crime. They could certainly have done better.
Saddening, but unsurprising: there have been question marks around South Yorkshire police ever since the miner's strike, I think. The Hillsborough tragedy was on their manor, as well, of course. Then again, there is plenty of first-hand evidence on this thread alone that women, and especially young girls, simply aren't believed by any of the authority figures they approach, so it's perhaps lazy scapegoating to point the finger at a dodgy police force, and only at them. That risks letting too many other people off the hook.
 
As I have said before, my own personal experience was that the Police could not have given a toss in these circumstances - that is until they were backed into a corner. One relatively high ranking officer said, in front of witnesses, "do you think that the Police have officers hanging about waiting to take witness statements about teachers?"
 
We did a safeguarding course at work many years ago. The person running the course said that the social workers who visited Victoria didn't have the rights to force entry. So when they did turn up, if they weren't allowed in, they just went home. No idea how true that was, but I suspect it was more true that we would like it to be.

Saville's focus on children in care must have been deliberately planned. These were children who were probably already wary/suspicious of authority and wouldn't have wanted to bring up what happened. And sadly as so many horror stories came out later, they may have been abused by other people in the care homes already.
Yes, and just generally - the 70s were a real low point, I think, in children being listened to or believed. It was a cultural thing - society as a whole.

But as for social workers not being allowed in, not sure I buy that. When I taught, they'd come to see the child in school - well I say that, it was rare one would bother to turn up. There'd be an appointment then a no show, more often than one ever actually turned up as promised. And that was after school had paid out a fortune in cover for me to meet with them. They were notorious for it. I think seeing kids in an environment where they are not being manipulated by a parent, would surely have more value, in some ways. For all I know the law has changed and I forget when the Climbie case was, but when I was teaching in the 1990s - early 2000s, my impression of social workers from a teacher's standpoint wasn't good at all and I never met a teacher that had a single good thing to say about them. They seemed very unprofessional, to me. And if they did turn up, they'd say offensive/outrageous things about kids' race, for example - or really callous, hard things about wrestling them from foster homes where they were happy, at the drop of a hat. I was with the kids all day every day and often got to know the parent/family situation pretty well - my opinion counted for nothing in any process and they'd even turn up and not remember a child's name. Which didn't inspire confidence.

I saw a documentary that said one problem with them is the culture in sw since the 70s has been to keep families together - and they are so hell bent on that (esp after the satanic panic accusations of the past) that they will knowingly leave kids with abusers, rather than take them away from the family structure.

I know someone who was in care in the 70s and they hated the care home because they wanted to be with their (mentally ill) parent - but on the other hand, they said they were never hurt or abused sexually, physically or mentally, whilst in care and were in fact treated quite well. I dunno how typical that was but it happened.
 
I've known women who were sexually abused at home, put into care and sexually abused in the care home. How they went on to lead relatively successful happy lives, with that amount of trauma, I don't know. Sadly of course some don't. A shame really that they did not feel able to expose those involved, but entirely understandable wanting to leave those episodes behind. I suspect that what we hear about is only a tiny proportion of what actually happened in the past and indeed continues to occur even today. Makes my blood boil.
 
I've known women who were sexually abused at home, put into care and sexually abused in the care home. How they went on to lead relatively successful happy lives, with that amount of trauma, I don't know. Sadly of course some don't. A shame really that they did not feel able to expose those involved, but entirely understandable wanting to leave those episodes behind. I suspect that what we hear about is only a tiny proportion of what actually happened in the past and indeed continues to occur even today. Makes my blood boil.

Do you mean they were abused actually inside the care home? Awful.
Some of the kids I worked with in care homes would repeatedly run off back to the abusers until they were over 18, when they were effectively out of the care system and someone else's problem. One hardly dares imagine what sort of lives they went on to live.

You're right about this too -

I suspect that what we hear about is only a tiny proportion of what actually happened in the past and indeed continues to occur even today

People sneer and laugh at 'misery lit', where people write memoirs of their traumatic childhoods, and the women's magazines with their stories of overcoming abuse. They're missing the point, which is that it's brave of victims to talk about the abuse and it will help others to come forward.

All the magazine stories mention how the perpetrators were eventually prosecuted and punished. I'm sure any possible stories about ones who weren't locked up are weeded out early so we don't get to see them.[/QUOTE]
 
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Yup, some teachers were just despicable. The ones that were knew which victims to pick on, as all bullies do, and the poor kids copped it.

I got the slapping around/random punishments/humiliation etc and of course didn't report home about it as I'd've then been clobbered at home too.

Once had what I much later realised was a close escape from a sexual assault by a male teacher but as has been pointed out, I wasn't going to report it to anyone because nobody would believe me. Besides which, I didn't know anything at all about sex so had no idea what was going on.
This is the sort of naivety and trust that paedophiles like Savile rely on.


I've never told anyone this, but given the relative anonymity of this forum I'll go ahead

I was raped on a regular basis by one of my secondary school teachers between the ages of 11 to 13, "look what you've made me do you little bastard" was a phrase he used more than once. I'm 63 now and this is the first time I've ever mentioned it.
 
I've never told anyone this, but given the relative anonymity of this forum I'll go ahead

I was raped on a regular basis by one of my secondary school teachers between the ages of 11 to 13, "look what you've made me do you little bastard" was a phrase he used more than once. I'm 63 now and this is the first time I've ever mentioned it.

Must be difficult for you to do so even under these circumstances. Take care.
 
Must be difficult for you to do so even under these circumstances. Take care.

Thanks for your good wishes, actually it was much easier than I imagined it would be. it scarred me mentally for many years, but given that the perpetrator is long dead (I imagine) and the books on psychology and self help I've used over the years, I'm not tormented by it any more.
 
I've never told anyone this, but given the relative anonymity of this forum I'll go ahead

I was raped on a regular basis by one of my secondary school teachers between the ages of 11 to 13, "look what you've made me do you little bastard" was a phrase he used more than once. I'm 63 now and this is the first time I've ever mentioned it.

What an absolutely awful thing to happen to you. I have no advice to offer but you have my very best wishes.
 
Saddening, but unsurprising: there have been question marks around South Yorkshire police ever since the miner's strike, I think. The Hillsborough tragedy was on their manor, as well, of course. Then again, there is plenty of first-hand evidence on this thread alone that women, and especially young girls, simply aren't believed by any of the authority figures they approach, so it's perhaps lazy scapegoating to point the finger at a dodgy police force, and only at them. That risks letting too many other people off the hook.


I read somewhere that both the perpetrators and the police had the same view of the young girls in the Rotherham scandal, that they were "worthless scum"
 
I read somewhere that both the perpetrators and the police had the same view of the young girls in the Rotherham scandal, that they were "worthless scum"

Yup, there was a belief that prostitution was a 'lifestyle choice'. This was actually said by a social worker somewhere to the mother of a teenage girl who was being exploited. No safeguarding whatsoever going on there. What a disgraceful failure.

However, when I worked with vulnerable teenagers in the '90s the local police were really keen and helpful. They cared.

Can't help feeling the police and Social Services in places like Rotherham were just overwhelmed by the size of the problem and the manipulative skills of the abusers. They should have got together and worked out strategies for dealing with the problem, rather than letting it defeat them.
 
...Can't help feeling the police and Social Services in places like Rotherham were just overwhelmed by the size of the problem and the manipulative skills of the abusers. They should have got together and worked out strategies for dealing with the problem, rather than letting it defeat them.

A near neighbour of mine, and a good friend of my youngest brother, is a quite senior copper - I suspect a very good one. He told me that one thing the police have always really struggled with (and the CPS, when trying to build a case) is what he called the 'hostile victim', and this seems to be an issue in lots of grooming cases. You can be sitting with an interviewee who you know is being exploited and abused, you can have all the machinery at hand to extricate them from the situation, and yet be unable to do anything because the victims hostility to authority is in constant conflict with their desire to be free of the problems that face them on the street. The mistake is for anyone to describe this as 'lifestyle choice', because, although it gives the appearance of being voluntary, it's actually a fundamental facet of their victimology, and nothing much to do with free will; you could maybe describe it as a form of Stockholm syndrome - but it's not really a choice at all.

I should point out that the phrase 'hostile victim' was not used with any implication of criticism - it's a description of an exploited individual's perception of authority, not a judgement of that position.
 
I've never told anyone this, but given the relative anonymity of this forum I'll go ahead

I was raped on a regular basis by one of my secondary school teachers between the ages of 11 to 13, "look what you've made me do you little bastard" was a phrase he used more than once. I'm 63 now and this is the first time I've ever mentioned it.
Really sorry to hear that. I’m very pleased for you that you have come through the other side.
 
In all fairness the sketch was aimed at Saville as he was the figure head in a campaign to use the rail system more “Let the train take the strain”. However no one is arguing with the sentiment!
Sorry, the advertising campaign slogan was “This is the age of the train”. The strain one was a non Savile campaign.
 
We did a safeguarding course at work many years ago. The person running the course said that the social workers who visited Victoria didn't have the rights to force entry. So when they did turn up, if they weren't allowed in, they just went home. No idea how true that was, but I suspect it was more true that we would like it to be.

Saville's focus on children in care must have been deliberately planned. These were children who were probably already wary/suspicious of authority and wouldn't have wanted to bring up what happened. And sadly as so many horror stories came out later, they may have been abused by other people in the care homes already.


Yes, however the Police DO. All that the SW had to do was ask the Police to attend, relate her child welfare concerns and there's your power of entry.
 
A rather disturbing photo I'd not seen before cropped up on Quora today.

Savile was a patron of Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital and persuaded ex-heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno to make a guest appearance and meet some of the patients/inmates.

Recognise the one on the left?

pic1.JPG

Yes. The UK's most notorious paedophile had befriended the UK's most notorious serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (AKA The Yorkshire Ripper) and arranged for him to meet big Frank.
 
A rather disturbing photo I'd not seen before cropped up on Quora today.

Savile was a patron of Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital and persuaded ex-heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno to make a guest appearance and meet some of the patients/inmates.

Recognise the one on the left?

View attachment 29654

Yes. The UK's most notorious paedophile had befriended the UK's most notorious serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (AKA The Yorkshire Ripper) and arranged for him to meet big Frank.
For a moment, I thought it was Jesus in a shellsuit.
 
A rather disturbing photo I'd not seen before cropped up on Quora today.

Savile was a patron of Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital and persuaded ex-heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno to make a guest appearance and meet some of the patients/inmates.

Recognise the one on the left?

View attachment 29654

Yes. The UK's most notorious paedophile had befriended the UK's most notorious serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (AKA The Yorkshire Ripper) and arranged for him to meet big Frank.

Savile was the master manipulator. Why on earth would Bruno want to meet Sutcliffe*? It's a shame Frank didn't just punch both those bastards in the chops.

*Sutcliffe apparently changed his surname in prison but I don't care enough to look it up.
 
Is that a Masonic handshake???

It's a bit awkward looking, but then Bruno was probably feeling a bit awkward at that point. On a very quick glance it kind of looks like Bruno's thumb is hidden, but it's a bit of an optical illusion - it is in fact visible.

At this point in the proceedings Bruno was probably pissed off enough to be imagining grabbing something else and squeezing extremely hard.

In fact, given Savile's impression - I dare say the same though had just struck him.
 
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