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Owzabout That Then? The Jimmy Savile Revelations & Aftermath

Sutcliffe apparently changed his surname in prison but I don't care enough to look it up.
The fact that he was able to do that annoyed me at the time, and still rankles. Tax payers' money was spent on the admin for that name change, to what end? Anything that benefits Sutcliffe can hardly be said to be in the public interest. And yes, he only deserves to be known by his original name - even the title "Yorkshire Ripper" risks glamorising him, and I certainly don't want to recognise a new name that he's chosen for himself.
 
Wasn't Savile questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper murders? Not necessarily as a real suspect but his "jogging and general out and aboutness" coincided with areas where Sutcliffe was murdering.
He was suspected (however improbably) of being Bible John!
 
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.
You are one brave lady, you survived that bastard, hope there is a special place in hell for him, thank you for trusting us enough to tell us, i wish i could give you a huge hug now.
 
You are one brave lady, you survived that bastard, hope there is a special place in hell for him, thank you for trusting us enough to tell us, i wish i could give you a huge hug now.
Sorry to intrude, but as the youth say, perhaps one shouldn't 'assume someone's gender' in this case, Shady.

Anyway, about Ogdred Weary saying Savile was questioned about the Yorkshire ripper murders, and Escargot suggesting re 'Bible John'. I mean if either of those things are true it's highly odd, and the excuse that 'he knew the area' could be applied to thousands of people, surely? That's quite weird if it's true.
 
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Wasn't Savile questioned in relation to the Yorkshire Ripper murders? Not necessarily as a real suspect but his "jogging and general out and aboutness" coincided with areas where Sutcliffe was murdering.
Yes he was. The revolting Savile spent a lot of time in the area where Sutcliffe was operating. One wonders whether in fact Savile was regarded as a suspect by some.
 
One of Sutcliffe's victims was found on parkland overlooked by a block of flats, one of which was owned by Savile. Everyone in the block of flats was questioned, including Savile, but if I recall correctly he wasn't staying there at the time. It was just routine to see if anyone saw something.

Regarding Bible John - Savile was too well known in 1968 to be able to visit the Barrowland Ballroom without someone recognising him.
 
Regarding Bible John - Savile was too well known in 1968 to be able to visit the Barrowland Ballroom without someone recognising him.
Well kind of it's more the fact that people would have thought him odd enough at the time, to think he could be responsible? (Just to add to the 'Loads of people knew he was a wrong un at the time' list, is what I mean).

(Although automatically thinking odd people are necessarily capable of doing more than just 'odd' things, is not really a route to go down, c.f. poor Chris Jefferies).
 
Well kind of it's more the fact that people would have thought him odd enough at the time, to think he could be responsible? (Just to add to the 'Loads of people knew he was a wrong un at the time' list, is what I mean).

I don't think anyone at the time thought that he was responsible, the same with the Ripper murders. I think these 'suspicions' arose only in the age of the internet, and more specifically, after Savile's death when his true crimes became mainstream news.
 
My Mum had a rather dim view of the man and his proclivities - this was early 1970's.

Which gets me wondering, how did a middle-aged woman out here in Australia know about someone like him, at that time (we left the UK in 1961).

When did his...activities become public knowledge? Anyone?
Might depend where your mum came from or whether she had any friends or family in Leeds as I think here he had a rep as being super dodgy as far back as the 1950s when he had the Mecca Locarno. (just had to go look up the name). People here always seemed to know about him to the point I recall some vague surprise that he'd been taken to the heart of the BBC in that there London. The jokes about him portering at the LGI (was it?) were everywhere. People thought he was vicious and a criminal and maybe some kind of predator, but am not sure if the rumours had started way back about the nature of the predation. In context, it felt like you were a sitting target for any older male, in the 1970s, (so am guessing also the 50s and 60s) if you were a young teenaged girl, at the time - men would quite openly joke about it, call you "jail bait" etc (I can remember that happening to me when I was 14 or 15, for sure).
 
The fact that he was able to do that annoyed me at the time, and still rankles. Tax payers' money was spent on the admin for that name change, to what end? Anything that benefits Sutcliffe can hardly be said to be in the public interest. And yes, he only deserves to be known by his original name - even the title "Yorkshire Ripper" risks glamorising him, and I certainly don't want to recognise a new name that he's chosen for himself.
Funny, we were just talking about this yesterday after I noticed on the 1911 census my family's next door neighbours in Leeds were called "Savile"... And I was saying to husband, that would be a far more embarrassing surname, right now, than, say Sutcliffe - another standard Yorkshire name. (I also have a very Yorkshire surname). And am not sure it's that Sutcliffe's crimes were decades ago and Savile's came to light more recently - I do just think that somehow, some surnames don't somehow pick up the stench, as much as others - and for no real reason I can discern. If that makes sense? I mean, I went to school with people called Sutcliffe in the 70s and early 80s - and wouldn't even have made the connection, nor would anyone else - yet I think if you were in Leeds and your surname was Savile - you'd change it!
 
Yes he was. The revolting Savile spent a lot of time in the area where Sutcliffe was operating. One wonders whether in fact Savile was regarded as a suspect by some.
It's thought that in the 50s and 60s, the police never pushed him about his activities at the Locarno, because certain high ranking officers would also be procured girls/young women - they were part of a ring, in other words. But a couple of decades on younger coppers coming up through the ranks may well have been aware of some of the stuff that had gone on in earlier years, therefore had a pretty good idea what he was upto - which would indeed make him a suspect. Esp when a victim was found by his flat.
 
Might depend where your mum came from or whether she had any friends or family in Leeds as I think here he had a rep as being super dodgy as far back as the 1950s when he had the Mecca Locarno. (just had to go look up the name). People here always seemed to know about him to the point I recall some vague surprise that he'd been taken to the heart of the BBC in that there London. The jokes about him portering at the LGI (was it?) were everywhere. People thought he was vicious and a criminal and maybe some kind of predator, but am not sure if the rumours had started way back about the nature of the predation. In context, it felt like you were a sitting target for any older male, in the 1970s, (so am guessing also the 50s and 60s) if you were a young teenaged girl, at the time - men would quite openly joke about it, call you "jail bait" etc (I can remember that happening to me when I was 14 or 15, for sure).


Mum was from The Potteries, and I've looked at where Leeds is - Not much distance is there...and news travels fast doesn't it.

I could never see how he got 'the job' at the BBC - he always came across as a smarmy get.
 
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It's been mentioned before but I think the power of Savile at the patrician BBC was essentially down to the fact that they viewed youth-culture as a small and undignified niche. He cornered it in the sixties and became their go-to man. He made it his Empire. Something similar was surely at work as he cosied-up to royals and politicians: to them, he represented da yoof, regardless of what da yoof actually thought of the nasty old twat. :eek:
 
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Yeah, I think the problem (to put it mildly) with that kind of serial abuse is that people have no idea it's going on aside maybe from rumour, and when it's revealed it seems incredible. But important questions really do go unasked in the real world, it's just not neat and tidy.
 
Yeah, I think the problem (to put it mildly) with that kind of serial abuse is that people have no idea it's going on aside maybe from rumour, and when it's revealed it seems incredible. But important questions really do go unasked in the real world, it's just not neat and tidy.

His goings on really were incredible, you can understand why people might not have believed them and assumed they were wild rumours. I recall jokes references to him being a necrophile back in the 90s and assumed they were just mad grand guignol invention but it seems they might well have been true.
 
It's been mentioned before but I think the power of Savile at the patrician BBC was essentially down to the fact that they viewed youth-culture as a small and undignified niche. He cornered it in the sixties and became their go-to man. He made it his Empire. Something similar was surely at work as he cosied-up to royals and politicians: to them, he represented da yoof, regardless of what da yoof actually thought of the nasty old twat. :eek:
Exactly this. I was a yoof once and all my friends considered Savile (and I quote one of them ) a revolting old f**.
 
Mum was from The Potteries, and I've looked at where Leeds is - Not much distance is there...and news travels fast doesn't it.
I could never see how he got 'the job' at the BBC - he always came across as a smarmy get.

Interestingly, the Potteries/Stoke entertainment scene was dominated for many years by one Ray Teret, a close friend of Savile. In the late '60s/early '70s my older sister and her friends would go to his nightclubs (by coach I think) most weekends. One was called The Place.
(I am 8 years younger and wasn't invited.)

Never heard of any impropriety about him until much later, but I knew who he was from reading Stoke the flyers and entertainment booklets that floated around.
Teret later ('70s/early '80s) had regular Piccadilly (Manchester) radio shows which I'd listen to when I lived over there. I was surprised as I knew he must've been getting on a bit by then!

His Sunday morning show featured an imaginary mass tap dance to The Lullaby of Broadway, where he'd encourage people with hangovers to dance away their pain. At the time this reminded me of Savile's early '70s Radio 1 Sunday morning show where Savile would speak directly to the 'hangover merchants'. Perhaps they traded tips.

Seems Teret was like a more local Savile and he operated in the same way. He is now in prison for Savile-type crimes.
 
I'll just remind everybody again that "the plural of allegation is not data".

While I am very confident that Savile probably used his fame and money to exploit people for sexual purposes, I have already pointed out elsewhere that I can't imagine that anyone in the Seventies (and later) music scene didn't. As I noted a while back here in the "Wacko Jacko" thread, luminaries like Bowie and Jagger have been demonstrated to be just as capable of such behaviour as Savile; it's possibly just that no-one has yet been prepared to run the gauntlet of their expensive libel lawyers. I foresee their fortunes remaining intact, however.

I would remind everyone that advertising in national newspapers that you could earn up to £60,000 by alleging, with some degree of credibility, that you had been interfered with forty years ago, is hardly a fine-toothed comb for establishing true numbers of possible victims. Imagine that you were suddenly wrongly accused of squeezing a lass's boob at a party in 1980: How exactly would you defend yourself? Further imagine that said lass was in line to get thousands of pounds of compo for your alleged molestation, and that several other girls at the same party thought to themselves, "This sounds like a good earner!", and added false stories that you'd twanged their bra straps or smacked their backsides. Your local newspaper gets hold of the tales, and next day your name is mud and your life as you knew it is over, because "There's no smoke without fire", and "Victims and children don't lie".

For anyone who's about to start typing furiously, I'd just remind them of one name: Carl Beech:

"Operation Midland was a British police investigation into alleged abuse, conducted by the Metropolitan Police in London from November 2014 to March 2016. The operation focused on investigation of several high-profile British citizens—politicians, military officers and heads of security—over claims of historic child sexual abuse and homicide.

The 18-month operation failed to find sufficient evidence to support the claims, and an inquiry into the police investigation afterwards concluded that the people involved had been falsely accused, leaving them dealing with considerable damage to their lives and reputations
."

I would also suggest a study of the writings of the late lamented Anna Raccoon, a respected blogger. She - IIRC - attended one of the schools where Savile was supposed to have committed his depredations, and found some of the allegations to be impossible or implausible. She went on to research them in some depth, with interesting findings. Here, for example, is her pithy summary of the final court hearing in July 2016 (Osborne Clark is the legal firm acting for themselves many of the alleged victims):

"So, we now have his excellent report in today’s Sunday Times detailing the expenses incurred by the ‘legal feeding frenzy‘. I commend it to you. If you don’t happen to have a copy of the Sunday Times, I shall spell it out for you…

"The hearing on Thursday – lasting a matter of two hours, cost £61,000.

The estate has now been whittled down to £2,042,000 from £4,300,000.

Osborne Clarke have received £1,800,000.

Only 78 cases remain from the ‘hundreds of abused victims’ – the 78 are merely those where no one could disprove the claim. They said they were in ‘x’ spot in ‘y’ year when ‘z’ occurred at the hands of Jimmy Savile and there is no evidence to show that either Savile was elsewhere, or the claimant hadn’t been born yet, or the premises didn’t exist at that time, or any of the other myriad ways in which claims have been dismissed.

The lawyers, the ten different firms representing these ‘can’t be disproved’ claims will share £689,000. A poke in the eye with a sharp stick for those whose share price is dependant on a healthy ‘work in progress’ estimate….

The 78 ‘victims of alleged abuse’ will receive an average £13,000."

maximus otter
 
Here's a local (Stoke) article about The Place in Hanley.
(Safe newspaper website link)

No mention of Teret!

The Place

The Place in the 1960s was a proving ground for superstars before they were famous. Rod Stewart came many times, so did Eric Clapton and David Bowie.

One night in 1965 a little piano player wearing Easy Rider glasses came to The Place with an oddly named group called Bluesology. His name was Reg Dwight. He later changed it to Elton John.

Teret and Savile were in at the ground floor of this new type of entertainment and as the article implies, young women were especially eager customers, ready to mix with the likes of the Stoke City footy team!

Never set foot in the place myself, being too young until the mid-70s and it wasn't my scene anyway. I may have had a lucky escape!
 
Yeah, I think the problem (to put it mildly) with that kind of serial abuse is that people have no idea it's going on aside maybe from rumour, and when it's revealed it seems incredible. But important questions really do go unasked in the real world, it's just not neat and tidy.
Yup, it's too much for a lot of people to process. Far easier to blame the victims, who are mostly young and/or vulnerable and can be dismissed as unreliable witnesses.

She's a slag, she threw herself at him, he doesn't know what he's talking about, she's making things up for spite, how could you say that about JIMMY!
(Or Gary or Ray or, dear God, ROLF!)
 
I'd never heard of that case.

Before my time, but I'm still surprised not to have come across the name in general reading.

How 'big' was it in national terms?

I wonder whether we have a thread on it all ready...

Edit: https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/bible-john.40009/#post-1271533
Bible John was a big enough story for it to form one of the strands of Ian Rankin's 1997 novel Black & Blue. And apparently Liam McIlvanney's 1960s-set novel, The Quaker, is also based on the Bible John killings. Bible John lurks in the background in a lot of Denise Mina's work, if I remember rightly. So in Scotland at least, this was clearly a major story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_&_Blue_(Rankin_novel)
 
Yup, it's too much for a lot of people to process. Far easier to blame the victims, who are mostly young and/or vulnerable and can be dismissed as unreliable witnesses.

She's a slag, she threw herself at him, he doesn't know what he's talking about, she's making things up for spite, how could you say that about JIMMY!
(Or Gary or Ray or, dear God, ROLF!)
I had (had being the operative word) a friend a few years ago who lived in Leeds and used to see Saville out and about.

He was reluctant to say that he believed he was guilty but he was one of the type of people who blamed the girls for wearing short skirts.

That they made it easy for him or something along those lines :(

To say I was horrified and shocked is an understatement.
 
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