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Owzabout That Then? The Jimmy Savile Revelations & Aftermath

Maybe the parents thought it was OK in a tourist village? Typical 'holiday' thinking! :mad:

Working on t'railway I sometimes met teenage train enthusiasts wandering round stations on their own. Some would chat and I'd remind them sternly not to go anywhere with people they met there.

I'd say 'Look at my badge, this is my name, notice I haven't asked your name! Don't tell anyone that!'
Gosh, there used to be tribes of us. All the way up to the 80's there were little kids as well - I mean primary school kids. It did change somewhere about 1980 when it became more the preserve of older teens and sad 20 year olds. I had other entertainments by then. (and the Deltics and Westerns had gone IIRC the last Deltics finished in 1981 and the Westerns in 1977).

Maybe it was because there tended to be groups of us that it was safe-ish? I don't recall any predator targeting trainspotters back then.
 
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Oh, and he told other staff that he liked to pop the glass eyeballs out of corpses -

There was a picture that showed him on the set of TOTP wearing a ring that appeared to have a glass eye attached.

At the time people probably thought it was some kind of black humour, but knowing what we know about him now... tbh, I don't even want to type the words.
 
There was a picture that showed him on the set of TOTP wearing a ring that appeared to have a glass eye attached.

At the time people probably thought it was some kind of black humour, but knowing what we know about him now... tbh, I don't even want to type the words.
Having actually got a plastic eye (they haven't been glass for a long time) that's a mere shibboleth compared to his other activities. I mean, I don't want to be buried with it any more than (I assume) a polio victim wanted to be buried with their calipers or iron lung.

But it does show how warped his mind was.
 
There is a case in court in France currently.

"The trial has started in the case of a French woman who shot dead a man she says abused her years - first as her stepfather then later as her husband.

Valerie Bacot was just 12 when Daniel Polette began raping her. He was jailed but later returned to the family home and allegedly resumed the abuse.

She alleges he forced her to marry him and fathered her four children."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57553692
Just a quick UPDATE

The prosecuter in the trial has said Ms. Bacot shound be shown clemency and released from prison.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57609494
 
Hitler has only got one ball!
The other is in the Albert Hall.
His mother, the dirty bugger,
Ate the other, when he was just small!

Southport, 1960s.

I think the Opies may have other variants but their tomes are hidden somewhere behind other books . . . :crazy:

Wrong tab mate?
 
It's still Saville's grave, just unmarked. The elaborate memorial was removed when it was realised how badly it would be defaced and damaged by angry nonce-haters.

However, the grave can be found easily enough by orienting by nearby stones as seen in newspaper reports. One day I will visit to pay my respects with a piss-bottle.
Blimey I thought I read they'd dug him up and stuck him somewhere else...
 
Just seen an advert featuring Esther Rantzen promoting the NSPCC, i am continually amazed that she has the front to continue promoting child charities, considering her long and well publicised relationship with Saville (not romantic or sexual, obviously), the rumours that his proclavities were well known in the entertainment sector cannot possibly have passed her by, yet for years she stood side by side with the most prolific paedophile in English history, promoting and even setting up child abuse charities, it begs the question, were these to salve her conscience?
 
Just seen an advert featuring Esther Rantzen promoting the NSPCC, i am continually amazed that she has the front to continue promoting child charities, considering her long and well publicised relationship with Saville (not romantic or sexual, obviously), the rumours that his proclavities were well known in the entertainment sector cannot possibly have passed her by, yet for years she stood side by side with the most prolific paedophile in English history, promoting and even setting up child abuse charities, it begs the question, were these to salve her conscience?

Rantzen reckons the persistent rumours about Savile couldn't be acted on because nobody would admit to seeing anything untoward.
Where did the rumours come from then?

BBC video clip of her explanation -

Esther Rantzen explains her lack of action over Jimmy Savile abuse rumours - video

Esther Rantzen explains why she did not do anything years ago when she first heard reports of Jimmy Savile's sexual abuse.
Rantzen, founder of the ChildLine child protection charity and a former broadcaster, says a junior researcher told her about rumours but there was no specific allegation.
She calls for a stronger culture of whistleblowing for junior staff.

All this is another way of saying Savile's abuse was an open secret that nobody cared to take action over. :mad:

'There's no proof!' is part of it. Whereas there were plenty of people in some authority, like children's ward hospital Sisters and BBC producers, who had the measure of Savile and wouldn't let him be alone with children.
 
Part of the issue is that the rumours were so excessive and outlandish that they might well people less likely to believe them. I vaguely recall necrophile jokes about him going back to the nineties, which I just put down to urban myth and gallows humour.

Lee and Herring made a passing reference and thinly veiled joke about this and they made it partially because they assumed that rumours that were that extreme were just rumours. One of the reasons that he got away with so much was that as well as being powerful, he was extremely litigious, threatening legal action for anything, so producers would excise any comments or jokes to avoid this. They got away with it on This Morning with Richard Not Judy because no one at the Beeb took any interest in their show, which was broadcast on Sunday day time and was very extreme for that slot and cancelled after tow seasons - I'm surprised they got to a second.
 
there were plenty of people in some authority, like children's ward hospital Sisters and BBC producers, who had the measure of Savile and wouldn't let him be alone with children.
According to the Davies book, he was banned from one of the cruise lines for this reason. In the early 1970s. So, yes, clearly some people knew what he was getting up to, and took what measures they could.

Others either didn't know or didn't care. I'm assuming the world of cruise ships is relatively small even now, let alone 40-50 years ago. Yet, when my parents won a cruise on the QE2 in the 1980s, guess who was one of the celebrity guests?
 
As l found out in my previous life, there are a lot of people who are willing to spread any scurrilous rumour, as long as it’s off the record and unattributable to them.

Finding someone who:

a) Has actual evidence, not fifth-party hearsay (“Everyone knows he’s a wrong ’un”) and;

b) Is willing to go on record and sign a statement as to what they know

- is the problem.

What people tend to recall is the post-mortem denunciations of Savile; these become concrete proof in the minds of tabloid readers, e.g. Johnny Rotten’s supposed outing of Savile on telly. As discussed here 2½ years ago, this amounts to nothing more than:

"...when you drill down into the story, you find that [John Snow] was talking to an ageing punk rocker who had never met the man, never been on one of his shows, and based his opinion on having thought he had ‘funny eyes’ when he saw him on television as a child.”

The same source (the sadly deceased “Anna Raccoon” on her excellent blog) states that she personally:

“…spent three hours with a man who spent almost fifteen years in daily contact with Savile, and who is still mystified as to how he could have allegedly committed ‘so many offences’ without him ever suspecting for one moment that he was a paedophile or a sexual predator."

l have no axe to grind re Savile, he may well have been a vile man who sexually exploited others; l take issue with the “Everybody knew that everybody knew” / “No smoke without fire” / “He’s safely dead, so let’s have a go” / “l was in the TOTP audience in 1976; if there’s a chance of a few thousand quid…” / “The [insert group of authorities] failed us all” mentality.

maximus otter
 
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The same source (the sadly deceased “Anna Raccoon” on her excellent blog) states that she personally:

“…spent three hours with a man who spent almost fifteen years in daily contact with Savile, and who is still mystified as to how he could have allegedly committed ‘so many offences’ without him ever suspecting for one moment that he was a paedophile or a sexual predator."
Hang on, are we accepting hearsay and personal accounts or not, then? I'd also echo a point that other posters have raised, on this thread and elsewhere, that abused kids sadly learn to read warning signs that other more fortunate individuals are blind to. That is, Anna Raccoon's source may well have been an upstanding citizen who simply wasn't primed to look for danger signs. Furthermore, I can imagine that an individual may well find it personally more comforting to assure themselves that there was nothing they could have done in a situation like this, no warning signs that they could (should?) have acted upon.
What people tend to recall is the post-mortem denunciations of Savile; these become concrete proof in the minds of tabloid readers, e.g. Johnny Rotten’s alleged outing of Savile on telly.
Lydon was/is a professional provocateur, for sure. I quite like him, as it happens, but it's worth taking anything he says with a large pinch of salt. That said, a] this does not automatically mean that he is lying every time he opens his mouth; b] we shouldn't dismiss every account on the basis of this one unreliable, albeit high profile, accuser.
 
Hang on, are we accepting hearsay and personal accounts or not, then? I'd also echo a point that other posters have raised, on this thread and elsewhere, that abused kids sadly learn to read warning signs that other more fortunate individuals are blind to. That is, Anna Raccoon's source may well have been an upstanding citizen who simply wasn't primed to look for danger signs.

Fair points. Perhaps it’s my dislike of bullying and the “let’s all pile on” attitude, but l’m more inclined to give weight to one witness who was close to JS and has the guts to stand against the tide, over the thousands who smugly say to one another, “l allus knew there were summat wrong about ‘im…”

maximus otter
 
I still remember the rumour that Savile was a weirdo because he was a virgin! Obviously that one fell by the wayside.

It's worth remembering the rumours really took off after he died because the tabloid press were making huge profits out of any dodgy story about him, so it was in their interests to propagate the idea that he was the world's most successful rapist. After reading Anna Raccoon, I was left questioning that narrative, for the reasons above and more, but while there were undoubtedly some fantasists involved, there were other more reliable-seeming witnesses too, and we've seen that some celebs misuse their status since. Savile did, if only for inserting himself into official organisations where he did not belong, as a civilian.

But the fact remains, if your child was or is going to be abused, they're thousands of times more likely to be abused by someone in the Scouting movement than anyone off TV. The tabloids are shamefully underplaying that particular scandal in comparison.
 
But the fact remains, if your child was or is going to be abused, they're thousands of times more likely to be abused by someone in the Scouting movement than anyone off TV. The tabloids are shamefully underplaying that particular scandal in comparison.
Although abuse can happen in the Scouting movement, just as it can anywhere else where there are young people supervised by adults, there is considerable danger in repeating this easy stereotype. The Scouting movement is mainly run by volunteers, most of whom are in it for the right reasons and do a good job.

The single most likely place for any child to be abused is their own home by a parent, guardian or other family member or family friend.

The tabloids publish what sells, and what sells is celebrity and the sort of scandal where everyone feels the right to express an opinion without being directly involved.

Also, in the defence of news reports generally, the sort of organised child abuse that relies on conspiracy, official blind eyes, and cover ups, feels like it affects us all in a way that thousands of separate unrelated domestic incidents do not.

For the victims, of course, it is just as bad, wherever it happens.
 
Although abuse can happen in the Scouting movement, just as it can anywhere else where there are young people supervised by adults, there is considerable danger in repeating this easy stereotype. The Scouting movement is mainly run by volunteers, most of whom are in it for the right reasons and do a good job.

The single most likely place for any child to be abused is their own home by a parent, guardian or other family member or family friend.

The tabloids publish what sells, and what sells is celebrity and the sort of scandal where everyone feels the right to express an opinion without being directly involved.

Also, in the defence of news reports generally, the sort of organised child abuse that relies on conspiracy, official blind eyes, and cover ups, feels like it affects us all in a way that thousands of separate unrelated domestic incidents do not.

For the victims, of course, it is just as bad, wherever it happens.
I agree totally with what you say, however
there was a massive scandal in the US with the 'Boy Scouts of America' which pretty much ended the movement, a compensation settlement has recently been agreed.

"Boy Scouts of America: $850m deal agreed over sexual abuse claims"​


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57692428
 
Who would want to be associated with such a notorious name?

Very distasteful.
 
It was inevitable that there was going to be some kind of drama written about Saville, therefore someone would have to play him.

"The Reckoning will be written by Neil McKay, who was also behind Appropriate Adult - the Bafta-winning drama about serial killer Fred West.
He and executive producer Jeff Pope also worked on Moorside, about the disappearance of Shannon Matthews"

I've seen both those productions and thought they were excellent.
 
Although abuse can happen in the Scouting movement, just as it can anywhere else where there are young people supervised by adults, there is considerable danger in repeating this easy stereotype. The Scouting movement is mainly run by volunteers, most of whom are in it for the right reasons and do a good job.

My own experience of Scouting was overwhelmingly positive: huge influence on my outlook as a child, a mass of experiences that few are lucky enough to have, and not a whiff of anything remotely untoward.

It is, as you say, cheap and damaging to smear the whole movement because a few predators have sneaked their way in.
 
I'll be watching. Writer Neil McKay and executive producer Jeff Pope have a good track record for this sort of drama. Safe hands.

McKay wrote Appropriate Adult, about the arrest and trial of the Wests. Dominic West's portrayal of Fred was so accurate it frightened Fred's own daughter when she saw the drama on TV.
I hope and trust Coogan can give a similarly detailed performance. High hopes all round. :)
 
My own experience of Scouting was overwhelmingly positive: huge influence on my outlook as a child, a mass of experiences that few are lucky enough to have, and not a whiff of anything remotely untoward.

It is, as you say, cheap and damaging to smear the whole movement because a few predators have sneaked their way in.
Yup, as I've no doubt mentioned I had an uncle who was a lifelong Scouter and Scout leader.*
He was appalled when a colleague was convicted of abusing boys apparently right under his nose, on the same Scouting trips. On the same campsites, possibly in the next tent.

It made him ill to think that was going on and he hadn't known, and couldn't stop it. Abusers groom the adults in charge as well as the kids.

*This was the uncle for whom I set up a Facebook page. I talked him through setting his own password and basic use of it over the phone. He started finding old friends he'd lost touch with and I assured him that people would be looking for him too.

He was soon in touch with Scouting pals from all over the world and was shown photos of himself he'd never seen before. There were even trips abroad to stay with some. It certainly brightened up his old age!
 
I don’t feel comfortable with the BBC doing a drama documentary on Savile. If the Beeb has any wish to atone for the alleged blind eyes to the red flags, a serious investigative documentary featuring interviews illustrated by clips and photos should be enough. Steve Coogan as a reconstruction lookalike brings it into the field of entertainment IMO.
 
I'm somewhat conflicted over this. I have no doubt whatever that many of the allegations against Savile are true. And I can think of no other figure that has had so many allegations against them dating back to even before he was a national figure.

But equally he hasn't been (and can't be) convicted of anything.

So, as I have come to realise is more common than I had supposed for most of my life, we are helpless against a potential vile predator. I could list others. Until the police are prepared to investigate allegations of sexual abuse WITHOUT evidence (and I realise that may require some legal changes) this sort of thing is going to recur.

But I should add, as is most important, they should not assume such allegations are true, and the privacy of both parties must be protected, with severely deterrent sentences against any agency that subverts the privacy. The public raid on Cliff Richard with the connivance of the BBC was in itself disgusting abuse.

Perhaps a specific unit outside the normal police force is required to deal with this kind of case.

I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas out of anger and frustration.
 
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