“He used to take his pick of the mix. He would wander around the school in a vest and tracksuit bottoms.
“He stayed in a flat on the top floor. He was the only man allowed to stay overnight. Who knows what horrors happened up there.
“The girls at Duncroft had been sent there by the courts for prostitution, drugs and because they tried to kill themselves. Who would have believed us against Saint Jimmy?”
A fellow pupil Carole Wells, now 52, told how Savile once assaulted her in his Rolls-Royce after the headmistress asked if she wanted to go for a ride with him.
She said: “He asked me my name and where I lived. Then he stopped the car and said, ‘Are you a virgin?’
“I said, ‘I’m not telling you that’. Then he put his hands down my knickers and started messing about with me. He put my hand down his trousers then took me back. I was crying.”
Ms Wells said she reported the incident to the head who allegedly did not believe her.
In 2007, Surrey Police investigated Savile over allegations that he had abused pupils at the school but the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence.
The approved school was one of 121 across the country managed and owned by voluntary groups overseen by central government.
The shadow Culture Secretary Harriet Harman said: “The fact that the Home Office now seems to be involved underlines the need for an independent inquiry.”
Savile was said to have abused his paper boy after inviting him into his flat to give him a Christmas bonus.
The lad was just 15 when the predatory TV star gave him £40 and then said: “Now you’ve got to really earn it,” according to the Sun.
Savile then lunged at the terrified teenager, pulling down his jeans and molesting him before he managed to escape his clutches in the star’s flat in Leeds.
“He would have raped me if I hadn’t got out of there,” said the victim aged 51.
“He seemed to get a sick strength from somewhere. He was like Jekyll and Hyde and got aggressive when I shrugged him off.
“He was shouting and bawling, Mr Nice Guy had gone out the window. It was very frightening. I remember it as if it were yesterday.”
Another man told the Sun Savile targeted him when he was 10 at the Haut de la Garenne children’s home in Jersey.
Meanwhile his former assistant Janet Cope told how Savile had an explosive temper that terrified everyone from hospital staff to fund-raisers.
Miss Cope initially stuck by him when the allegations of his perverted past surfaced. But as the trickle turned to a torrent, she conceded that even she may have been duped, according to the Mirror.
“Sadly, the evidence against Jim does seem a bit overwhelming and, really, I’m at a loss for words,” she said.
“He thought he was untouchable because he was hand in glove with the hospitals, royalty and the Prime Minister.”
Dame Janet Smith, a former High Court judge, will look into whether the BBC’s culture allowed sexual harassment and assault to take place while
Jimmy Savile was one of its biggest stars for 40 years.
In a separate inquiry, Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News, will look at whether a BBC’s Newsnight programme probing Savile’s past was shelved to cover-up his alleged abuse.
The Pollard Review will begin immediately, but the Smith Review may be delayed while police investigate claims from more than 60 potential victims that they were molested by the late DJ and broadcaster.
It came after Downing Street said David Cameron may call a separate public inquiry after the BBC and police have done their work.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said he “has not ruled out” an independent hearing into the “truly shocking” revelations.
Earlier in the day, Nick Clegg, the deputy Prime Minister, said there may be a case for a public inquiry as Savile’s alleged ability to abuse in so many areas of public life shows the “dark side” of celebrity.
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, previously called for the Government to take a “broad look” at the “horrific allegations” embroiling Savile, who died last year at the age of 84.
The BBC and police inquiries were prompted after ITV broadcast interviews with a series of women claiming to have been assaulted by Savile in the 1970s.
Since its programme was aired, dozens more women have come forward with allegations about Savile, while presenters Liz Kershaw and Sandi Toksvig, have said they were routinely groped by more senior male colleagues at the BBC.
Some of the evidence about Savile collected by a former child protection officer had previously been rejected by the BBC’s Newsnight, which went on to show programmes celebrating its star’s life and charity works.
Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, on Monday suggested the Newsnight investigation was “inappropriately pulled”, although her office later claimed she had not meant to say that.
George Entwistle, the BBC’s director-general, will face questions over the decision when he appears before the culture, media and sport committee of MPs as early as next week.
Mr Entwistle has said he was aware Newsnight was investigating Savile last year, when he was the head of BBC Vision, but claims he did not ask about the investigation in case he was accused of meddling.
He is likely to be asked why the BBC decided to screen tribute programmes to Savile after his death last year without finding out more about the Newsnight investigation.
Kevin Marsh, editor of the BBC College of Journalism and a former editor of Radio 4’s Today programme, said the “real and present danger” to the BBC and to Mr Entwistle was the question: “Why didn’t the head of Vision shelve the tributes once he knew that a BBC programme – or indeed any other part of the media – was finally investigating Savile?”
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Jeremy Vine, the Radio 2 presenter and former Newsnight journalist, said it would be a scandal if anyone at the BBC had allowed the “hagiographies” about Savile’s life to be aired if they knew the details of the Newsnight investigation.
For me the BBC is a smokescreen in this affair, I know ‘smokescreen’ is an overused word in the English language but I think the evidence here shows it applies.
The BBC is the perfect diversion as it allows blame to be shifted to an institution while the people and other institutions/ organizations involved can sleep soundly, because they know any debate about the BBC soon becomes an argument ABOUT the BBC thus entirely deflecting the real issue.
The man who produced Jim’ll Fix It for 20 years who has being doing the rounds on TV the past 2 days ( I didn’t catch his name but he was on This Morning – 16-10-12, first item) said that Jimmy spent as little time as possible in BBC TV center.
THE ULTIMATE SCANDAL IS NOT WHAT JIMMY DONE AT THE BBC IT’S WHAT TOOK PLACE ELSEWHERE.
Jimmys knighthood, papal knighthood, the contacts via charity’s, Broodmoor , Stoke mandaville , time at Chequers, his land rover with a bed in the back(!), his abuse in the back of his Rolls Royce ( who was driving – him?).
Broodmoor is by far the nastiest part of this since someone who is mentally ill may well be unaware that abuse is even taking place and even if they did would have no means of access to outside world, yet where are the MP’s / media commentators, demanding an enquiry for the poor Broodmoor ‘patients’.
Notice Freddie Starr is constantly being linked with BBC even though he was ITV personality as that’s what fits the narrative.
The above post took even longer than normal (and was originally longer), I got an error message I haven’t got before -( Edit conflict – Their was more than one attempt to edit your post at the same time this could be due to a double click ) – when I then clicked back all comment had been wiped.
At the very least Blogger is getting worse or being allowed to slowly get worse in time and I would not be surprised if google soon announced its closure, under the pretence of amalgamating it with google+.
persevere, horehound. stuff reappears.
Hi Tap, Now that Ed Miliband is on the ball, what can we expect.
Well, this man could not even be bothered to have his name on his sons birth certificate.
Well, this man was not even married to Justine Thornton who had his children.
Well, this man never answers letters from his Constituents, and calls them “racist”.
Well, what else can I say.
Breaking:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/statements/newsnight.html
Statement regarding Newsnight and Jimmy Savile
Date: 22.10.2012Last updated: 22.10.2012 at 10.23
Category: Corporate
The following statement has been issued by the BBC.
The BBC has today issued a correction to the blog by the editor of Newsnight, Peter Rippon.
On the basis of material now available, it is apparent from information supplied by the Newsnight editor and programme team, that the explanation by the editor in his blog of his decision to drop the programme’s investigation is inaccurate or incomplete in some respects.
The BBC regrets these errors and will work with the Pollard Review to assemble all relevant evidence to enable the review to determine the full facts.
In addition, the BBC has announced that Peter Rippon is stepping aside with immediate effect from his post while the review by Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News, into the management of Newsnight’s investigation, is carried out.
BBC Press Office
First attempt to provide a scapegoat.
Yes. Tonights Newsnight was a brillant display of theatre at best. I haven’t watched the Panorama but I have been reading comments on twitter, it seems very hard hitting, but still raises as many questions as it does answers (as you might expect).
What is interesting is the hit the BBC is taking, rightly as the governments mouth piece.
Here is one:
“Okay:we all relied on ‘NewsNight’, of all news progs, to look~after us truth~wise.Turns out they can’t be…”
So something good has come out of it.
Toad Hall.