In late 2012, it emerged that Jimmy Savile, a British media personality who had died the previous year, had sexually abused hundreds of people throughout his life, mostly children but some as old as 75, and mostly female. He had been well known in the United Kingdom for his eccentric image and was generally respected for his charitable work, which associated him with the British monarchy and other individuals of personal power.
On 3 October 2012, an ITV documentary presented by investigative reporter Mark Williams-Thomas was broadcast in which several women said that, as teenagers, they had been sexually abused by Savile. By 11 October, allegations had been made against Savile to 13 British police forces, which led to the setting-up of inquiries into practices within both the BBC and the National Health Service (NHS), both institutions that had worked closely with Savile. On 19 October, London's Metropolitan Police (Met) launched a formal criminal investigation, Operation Yewtree, into historic allegations of child sexual abuse by Savile and other individuals, some still living, covering four decades. The Met stated that it was pursuing over 400 lines of inquiry, based on the claims of 200 witnesses, via 14 police forces across the UK. It described the alleged abuse as being "on an unprecedented scale" and the number of potential victims as "staggering." By 19 December, eight people had been questioned as part of the investigation. The Met stated that the total number of alleged victims was 589, of whom 450 alleged abuse by Savile.
The report of the investigations undertaken jointly by the police and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), Giving Victims a Voice, was published on 11 January 2013. It reported allegations covering a period of 50 years, including 214 alleged acts by Savile which, though uncorroborated, have been formally recorded as crimes, some involving children as young as eight. The report states "within the recorded crimes there are 126 indecent acts and 34 rape/penetration offences." Alleged offences took place at 13 hospitals as well as on BBC premises, according to the report.
In October 2013, it was announced that inquiries had widened to other hospitals. On 26 June 2014, the Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt reported on the findings of the investigations led by Kate Lampard. He said that Savile had sexually assaulted victims aged between 5 and 75 in NHS hospitals, and Hunt apologised to the victims. Further investigations, in hospitals and elsewhere, led to additional allegations of sexual abuse by Savile.
Savile often came into contact with his victims through his creative projects for the BBC and his charitable work for the NHS. A significant part of his career and public life involved working with children and young people, including visiting schools and hospital wards. He spent 20 years from 1964 presenting Top of the Pops, aimed at a teenage audience, and an overlapping 20 years presenting Jim'll Fix It, in which he helped the wishes of viewers, mainly children, come true. During his lifetime, two police investigations considered reports about Savile, the earliest known being in 1958, but neither investigation had led to charges; each had concluded that there was insufficient evidence for any charges to be brought related to sexual offences. In 2007, he had been interviewed by the police under caution and in 2008 he started legal action over allegations in The Sun. In October 2012 it was announced that then-Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer would investigate why proceedings against Savile in 2009 were dropped. A BBC Newsnight investigation into reports Savile had sexually abused children was scheduled for broadcast on 7 December 2011 but cancelled. From October 2012, that cancellation together with the BBC's other handling of concerns about Savile became the subject of further inquiries and investigative reporting.
The scandal was a major factor leading to the establishment of the wider-ranging Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which was announced by the Home Secretary Theresa May in July 2014 and was initially administered by Baroness Butler-Sloss (appointed July 2014) and Fiona Woolf (appointed 5 September 2014). In February 2015, the inquiry was reconfigured as a statutory inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 framework chaired by Justice Lowell Goddard.
Background In his autobiography, Savile describes himself as having a predilection for young girls. He would joke to the press when they phoned him: "She told me she was over 16." Press investigations dating back to at least 1973 did not lead to the publication of any direct accusations being made against Savile, although rumours persisted and were intermittently mentioned in the print media for many years.
Savile claimed the key to his success on the BBC programme Jim'll Fix It had been that he disliked children, although he later admitted to saying it to deflect scrutiny of his private life. He did not own a computer as he did not want people to think he was downloading child pornography. In a 1990 interview for The Independent on Sunday, Lynn Barber asked Savile about rumours that he liked "little girls." Savile said: "The young girls in question don't gather round me because of me – it's because I know the people they love, the stars... I am of no interest to them."
In 1995, Savile was the subject of a 45-minute interview by Andrew Neil for the TV series Is This Your Life?. His personal life was the subject of Neil's close questioning but Savile deflected the attention and humoured the audience by eating a banana https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmm-5xArefg.
In April 2000, Savile was the subject of a Louis Theroux documentary in the When Louis Met... series. In it, Theroux asked Savile about speculation he was a paedophile. Savile said: "[We] live in a very funny world. And it's easier for me, as a single man, to say 'I don't like children' because that puts a lot of salacious tabloid people off the hunt.... How do they know whether I am [a paedophile] or not? How does anybody know whether I am? Nobody knows whether I am or not. I know I'm not."
A follow-up documentary, Louis Theroux: Savile, about Theroux's inability to detect Savile's true nature, aired on BBC Two in 2016. Broadcaster and journalist Orla Barry, on the Irish radio station Newstalk in 2007, asked Savile about allegations aired during the original Theroux documentary. In 2012, Barry remembered that Savile responded, "What rumours?", and expressed surprise that other journalists had not pursued the matter, saying, "Maybe in the UK they were slightly closer to him."
In 2007, Savile was interviewed under caution by police investigating an allegation of indecent assault at the now-closed Duncroft Approved School for Girls near Staines, Surrey, in the 1970s, when he was a regular visitor. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) advised there was insufficient evidence to take any further action and no charges were brought. In 2012, it was reported that staff at the school had not been questioned about the allegations at the time. A former headmistress of the school said she had been "hoodwinked" by Savile, but described some of those who had brought the allegations as "delinquents."
In March 2008, Savile began legal proceedings against The Sun newspaper, which had linked him in several articles to child abuse at the Jersey children's home Haut de la Garenne. Savile denied visiting Haut de la Garenne but admitted doing so after a photograph was published showing him at the home surrounded by children. The States of Jersey Police said an allegation of indecent assault by Savile at the home in the 1970s had been investigated in 2008, but there had been insufficient evidence to proceed.
Journalism
Aborted Newsnight report Savile died of heart failure and cardiac arrest on 29 October 2011, aged 84. At the time of his death and funeral in Leeds Cathedral, he was widely praised for his charity and voluntary activities as well as his entertainment work.
Immediately after Savile's death, Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean from the BBC programme Newsnight began to investigate reports that he had sexually abused children. They interviewed one alleged victim on camera and talked to others who were willing to be quoted about alleged abuse at Duncroft Approved School, the BBC, and Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The former headmistress of Duncroft was Jones' own aunt. The Newsnight team, which included former police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, also found out about a 2009 Surrey Police investigation into Savile. The report was scheduled for broadcast on 7 December 2011, but a decision was taken to cancel its transmission, which ultimately developed into a major crisis for the BBC when the allegations against Savile were made public in October 2012. The subsequent Pollard Review found that Jones and MacKean had assembled cogent evidence that Savile had a history of abusing young women and Newsnight had been in a position to break the story in 2011. In November 2021, Mark Williams-Thomas spoke to GB News calling the BBC's treatment of the allegations "absolutely appalling."
In January 2012, the Sunday Mirror reported that Newsnight had investigated allegations of sexual abuse immediately after Savile's death but that the report had been shelved. An article by Miles Goslett in the March 2012 edition of The Oldie alleged a cover-up. The BBC showed two Savile tributes over the 2011 Christmas period, and it was alleged that the Newsnight report had been dropped because its content would have compromised the showing of the tributes. A joint submission to the Leveson Inquiry from Anna van Heeswijk (Object), Jacqui Hunt (Equality Now), Heather Harvey (Eaves) and Marai Larasi (End Violence against Women) was titled "Just the Women", a phrase which was reportedly written by Newsnight editor Peter Rippon in an email to a colleague concerning the lack of other authorities [than the alleged female victims] for evidence of Savile's abuse. A Newsnight spokesman said, "Any suggestion that a story was dropped for anything other than editorial reasons is completely untrue."
In October 2013, the transcript of Surrey Police's interview with Savile in 2009 was published after a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Savile denied the sexual abuse allegations relating to Duncroft Approved School put to him by the police, saying, "I've never, ever done anything wrong" and stating that the accusers wanted a "few quid."
Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile An ITV documentary, Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, was broadcast on 3 October 2012. It was researched and presented by Mark Williams-Thomas, the former police investigator who had previously been involved in the shelved Newsnight investigation.
Several women interviewed by Exposure said that, as teenagers, they had been sexually abused by Savile. It was also said Savile obtained access to teenage girls through his television programmes Top of the Pops and Clunk, Click (1973–74), and his charity work. Savile's former colleagues said he made no attempt to hide his interest in girls from them, while another said she had walked in on him kissing an underage girl. One woman who said Savile had sexually assaulted her in 1970, when she was 14, explained she had not pursued her complaint to police in 2008 after being told it would lead to a "media circus". The founder of ChildLine, Esther Rantzen, was shown the interviews by Williams-Thomas and commented that, "There were always rumours that [Savile] behaved very inappropriately sexually with children."
An update to the original documentary, Exposure Update: The Jimmy Savile Investigation, was shown on ITV on 21 November. It won a Peabody Award in 2012.
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