The British Press (Fleet Street) gossiped about Jimmy Savile's alleged 'liking for little girls', decades ago. We know this, not because Meirion Jones, or Andrew Neil says so. We know, because someone questioned Savile directly about it in 1990. That someone was Lynn Barber. She'd heard the rumours, she asked him about them, she wrote about asking him, and then published an article about it in a Sunday supplement of a British Newspaper, and she didn't get sued.
I don't like this film because it does exactly what it accuses its subject of. It's complicated, but I'll try explaining what I mean, as best as I can.
Here's how it begins. Cast in order of appearance :
Jimmy Savile, Fix it footage, Savile on Parkinson, running for charity, the London Palladium, opening of Stoke Mandeville, Prince Charles, some establishment dinner, the Pope, Thatcher, Jersey
FOR OVER 50 YEARS A NATION WATCHED HIM
Savile at the door of Big brother 2006
BUT NO ONE SAW THE TRUTH
Commander Peter Spindler Scotland Yard :
"We received over 400 lines of information from the public. We. Are. Investigating. Major Crime here". My full stops reflect how he's speaking. You'd have to watch it to know what I mean.
The viewer isn't told the date, but ITV published the following on October 25th 2012.
The film has hardly begun, and I know it's going to be awful for me personally, to watch. The global audience for whom this film was commissioned, isn't told that the British Police did NOT investigate Spindler's alleged '114 allegations' The British Police misled the British audience in 2012. Out of their mouths came one thing, one message : that they were 'investigating', when really they were NOT. Not the claims about Savile anyway. They would investigate but not investigate, the word/expression they came up with was 'assess', they would 'assess' those lines of information and yet, to this day, they haven't adequately explained to any of us, how they did this. That : 'not investigating , yet deciding that 214 crimes had been committed didn't make sense to me in January 2013. It still doesn't, and I'm bloody sure I won't let some film maker get away with pulling the wool over the eyes of newcomer's to the story. This is what the British public were told three weeks earlier.
The credits begin and above the music one hears :
"Steven King would struggle to come up with something like this".
Savile : "If you are clever, you can slip up. You never slip up if you are tricky".
Clips of : Roger Ordish, Tina Davey (BBC secretary 1971 - 1975), Martin Edwards (BBC reporter who spent a week with Savile, running for charity and next : Jones.
"My dealings with Jimmy Savile started years ago. My aunt ran this very strange institution called Duncroft. I started going there when I was, sort of, probably 6 or 7.
From 1970 we would regularly visit about once a month.
"It was very grand and yet there were bars on the upstairs windows where the girls were at night ... this was called an approved school .. a prison for 14 year old girls who'd done bad things. Some of them had done very bad things. You know at times there were child murderer's here and all sorts of things.
I found it unnerving. Some of these girls had been accused of very serious offences. When I was a little kid, I'd come here and they would be like - babysitting me while the adults went, you know, had a few drinks or a party or something".
Now, had Jones said something like this in a film that wasn't this one, someone - say, me, would be challenging what he'd just said. My questioning would have gone something like this : "Child murderer's ? What child murderer's ? Babysitting ? You mean your parents left you alone with girls who had committed very serious offences ? Have you reported them to the Police ?".
He continued :
"In the middle of all this Savile arrived when I'm probably about 16. At first it seemed he was just another of the celebrities there, but he kept turning up. Very often when we turned up we would see Savile. It was the first time I'd dealt with him face to face.
All his phrases : now then, now then and all this stuff. It seemed to be a screen . So there he was in his shell suit and he was making a screen in front of him and it was like - you couldn't see through it. A lot of the girls were drugged up a lot of the time (how does/did he know this ?). Psychiatrists often over-prescribed just to keep them quiet (he's not speaking about what he witnessed at Duncroft here, is he ?) But never mind, this is his story after all !
I remember seeing him driving off with three girls from the school. In the back seat, they were very excited. They were waving at their friends up at the windows. I mean they're locked-up. Suddenly one of the most famous people in Britain is turning up, and that started to become a bit of an issue for my parents who were both teachers, who would say to my aunt 'why are you letting this guy hang around with 13 year-old girls, and she would always say 'well it's Jimmy - he's a friend of the school, raising money for charity, helping people, you know, Jim'll Fix It'."
Roger Ordish
A Jim'll Fix It Participant
Mark Lawson
Lynn Barber :
"I was the Independent On Sunday's celebrity interviewer. I mean I was called 'Demon Barber' which was a bit hard I thought. More of my interviews were nice but the bitch ones were the ones the readers loved. Before I worked for the IOS I worked for the Sunday Express. I did a series called : 'Things I wished I'd known at 18. Jimmy Savile - I'm not sure what he said he wished he'd known at 18, but I asked him about the fact he'd never had a girlfriend. He said that he was so busy he didn't have time for girlfriend or children or a proper home. And he was always travelling.
Some time after, I asked around the office and what was striking was how many people said to me : 'you know he likes little girls. It was a very widespread rumour, but it was a feature of Fleet Street that rumours could go on round and round and round, so you did hear the same thing from twenty people, which did make them sound plausible. But then you had to try and get some back-up : 'have you any evidence for this ?', and they never did.
We leave Barber there for now. After a short clip of Savile on Russell Harty, we have Dominic Carman, son of George Carman Q.C. who gives us hearsay, and an insight into what he refers to as the 'invisible club' that is : the establishment. He's one of two 'establishment' contributors in this film. The message is clear : Savile only raised £10,000,000 for the rebuilding of a hospital wing, in order to impress and thereby win the protection that being in this 'club', affords. A sort of : 'immunity from prosecution' if you will.
Says Carman : "People can enter the establishment from modest backgrounds. To be taken 'seriously' by the establishment, one has to make a very strong impression on them. A BIG impression (his emphasis)".
The wards of The Spinal Injuries Unit at SM Hospital, were in a bad way. The ceilings were literally falling in on top of the patients. Sylvia Nichol offers the following :
"On the Second of January 1980, we had bad snow. One of the patient's is lying in his bed, can't move, and the ceiling above his head, which was all he'd got to look at for a few months, was beginning to BULGE (her emphasis)".
"One of the consultants phoned Jim and said can you help us, and that's when all hell broke loose". Footage of the start of the appeal to rebuild the National Spinal Injuries Centre, bagpipes included.
Clip of Savile eating fish and chips with Russell Harty.
Christine Checkley a patient at SM : "Stoke Mandeville keeps me going. That's why I'm still here now. I was given a life expectancy of ten years, and look at the age of me now. We NEEDED that hospital".
Parkinson with Alan Alda
Fix It with Margaret Thatcher
Lord Robin Butler :
"When I became Principal Privy Secretary to MT in 1982, her relationship with Jimmy Savile had really become quite established. Their relationship was pretty close, he was writing letters to her, she had invited him to the PM's country residence : Chequers. Stoke Mandeville is on the doorstep of Chequers, it was round the corner. MT partularly liked Jimmy Savile because he wasn't relying on what the state, could do".
A doctor in Stoke Mandeville :
"This place would not be in existence without Jimmy Savile. He has been the driving force. The focal point. The Engineer. The saint".
Sylvia N : "I 'd never seen anyone. Do that much good. He kept it up, never faltered. I just, sort of - I probably loved him".
Next up : Footage of Prince Charles and Diana opening the new hospital wing in 1983. Repeated visits by Diana - sometimes on her own, etc etc etc.
Alison Bellamy former reporter for The Yorkshire Evening Post and Savile biographer.
"I was the Jimmy Savile correspondent, covering all his news ... I DID like him ... I did know quite a lot about him, so I was asked by a book publisher to write his biography. It was published three months before the scandal erupted. After the scandal I was shown all of this stuff. Lots of letters, here. He kept everything, you know, meticulously".
"So these letters, from the Royal Family. They include Prince Charles and Princess Diana".
In 1987 Prince Charles writes to Savile : "I do so want to get to parts of the country that others don't meet. What I really need is a list of suggestions from you. Perhaps I am wrong, but you are the bloke who always knows what's going on".
Ms Bellamy expresses some surprise that some one like PC would seek advice from someone like Jimmy Savile. I'm more surprised that he uses the word 'bloke' myself.
Back to Lord Butler's recollections of Thatcher "pressing" for him (Savile) to get a Knighthood, "in the early eighties".
Jimmy Savile : "It said in the magazine the other day that the only person she listened to was Jimmy Savile (he and reporter laugh about this) which in itself is an oddity. We'll go down and sit with the prime minister over the Christmas period and I think that someone like me is invited into a family circle like that, because I'm not a political person and maybe she just wants a bit away from politics over Christmas.
Here's Jimmy Savile at his best in my opinion. You'd need to watch it to know what I mean.
Lord B reflects on Thatcher's countless attempts to get Savile a knighthood.
"My predecessor, chairman of the main honours committe, he said : 'Mr Savile is a strange and complex man. He deserves high praise But he has made no attempt to deny the accounts in the press about his private life accounts of his private life, WHY ?". I'm not sure if that 'why' is his predecessor's words or Lord B's, but next up is Meirion Jones
"My contact with Duncroft School and in fact Jimmy Savile, really ended in about 1976 ... I got to university, became a journalist, sort of, invested my life in it. I mean, I always remembered, what I had seen, back in the 70's. Looking at these cuttings from the Sun (On screen is the paper dated Monday April 11th 1983) It's billed as 'the dark side of Britain's top DJ, but actually, it's a dark side that he can live with. Er, it's not a dark side that's gonna lead him to being prosecuted for anything ... safe confessions for him to have been associated with, and perhaps he then gets rid of the reporters ... he's coughed, he's admitted. We don't need to look at him, anymore .. he was very good at distracting people".
But Meirion, this is what 1983 ? Weren't you a journalist by then ? Why didn't you speak up back then ?
Next the audience is offered an example of how the camera apparently LIES. I'm still getting my head round the irony of Selena Scott's contribution and the message her latter day testimony regarding her experience of interviewing Savile back in the 80's, repeatedly.
'I know what I was thinking when I was looking at him there. It's a totally different experience when you are sitting at home and looking at this set. It's like I'm a liar, like (inaudible) sitting there telling fibs, when the truth is very different (inaudible) A camera never lies does it ? (shakes her head) A camera never lies.
So what I'm looking at here is something totally different to what I actually felt at the time. SO THE CAMERA DOES LIE. You know - if the camera never lies the the camera would have picked up on him years ago. Yeah, Yes IT'S THE BIGGEST LIAR - THE MOST INFLUENTIAL LIAR'.
It's not the camera that's lying and it's probably not Selena either. Bless her, she's just doing her job. And Savile is just doing his and the 1980's audience loved it. Meanwhile, behind everyone's backs, the Fleet Streeter's were gossiping that Savile 'liked little girls' but no one had any evidence, so no one could print that gossip, back then. That's not how they did things back then.
To be continued !
I don't know how you have the energy to keep wading through this stuff, Rabbit, but good on you.
ReplyDelete"It was a feature of Fleet Street that rumours could go on round and round and round, so you did hear the same thing from twenty people, which did make them sound plausible." Well, quite. They all knew...nothing.
Thanks Misa.
DeleteSeems likely that JS was made a scapegoat after his death; let's face it, there were more than enough chances to nail him while he was alive (if he was suspected of anything proof-worthy), so why wait until he's dead to throw the shit in his direction?
DeleteIn my humblest opinion, it's all rather fishy.
Meirion Jones' memories are weird. He was born in 1957 so any meeting with Jimmy Savile would have occurrd in 1974, when he would have been 17 or so, not when he was a child. I don't get how a documentary-maker can be so unaware of basic facts.and not notice he is conflating childhood memories of something else entirely, from ten years earlier.
ReplyDeleteI see now that he admits being 16 when he met him, but he's on the record as insisting he met JS as early as 1970
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I have always felt rather underwhelmed by most of the allegations against Jimmy Savile. Smacking or pinching somebody's bottom live on air (Top of the Pops) is unseemly behaviour and deserves a reprimand, but it's also something that most people would laugh off and forget about.
ReplyDeleteOne of these sad, unfortunate women claimed that she had given fellatio to Savile, but careful listeners will have heard her admit that she did so voluntarily. Again, assuming it's true, Savile's behaviour in that incident was sleazy and arguably should have earned him the sack, but it's a front-page tabloid sex scandal not criminal offending.
Notice how in one press caption above it says:
[quote]"Sir Jimmy Savile is alleged to have abused young girls at the height of his fame, in the 1970s."[unquote]
Alleged. What it should say is 'claimed' or 'It is claimed that...' There is a significant difference between claims and allegations. One implies a solid basis to proceed, a prima facie case, something well above spuriousness - albeit that the facts are yet to be proven. Allegations require that the accused is still alive. Meanwhile, claims are something anybody can put forward, even spuriously. I could claim practically anything against a dead person, with no legal repercussions. That's because the dead person is conveniently not around to answer for himself and provide a counter-narrative to my claims. If there are financial incentives that may bring rewards if my claims are successful, then my claims should be eyed with scepticism, if not outright suspicion - especially if I had the opportunity to make such allegations when the subject was still alive but failed to do so, or did so but they were rejected by the police.
That brings me to a point that they always skip over. They say that Savile was investigated and questioned by police forces about his sexual conduct at different points during his lifetime. They try to suggest that this supports their claims, but I disagree. If anything, it should be seen as undermining what they claim. They don't explain how it can be that Jimmy Savile was investigated by police and not prosecuted, despite being very much alive. How did this fiend get away with it? Of course, it's at this point that the conspiracy theories come to the fore. It must be that he had friends in high places - is the usual explanation. The people who say this are the types who would smugly sneer and snigger at similar conspiracy theories in other contexts. Or they say that 'it was different back then'. Yet this is nonsense: men were prosecuted for this sort of thing all the time in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s.
If the police had found enough evidence on Savile, isn't it quite likely that police officers and prosecution lawyers would have relished the chance to go after somebody famous?
True, Savile's connections to Thatcher and the Royals would have been a point of embarrassment in such circumstances, but surely that could have been suppressed or played down? Most press and media would have complied with any request to do so. A column or two in Private Eye or Scallywag would not have concerned these people.
Whatever Savile did or did not get up to (I emphasise that I do not say he is innocent, only that I am sceptical), there simply wasn't sufficient evidence for the authorities to take matters further, or in some cases, there was evidence but the misconduct was considered petty or trivial. That was the verdict of sensible people - i.e. police officers and prosecution lawyers who had every incentive to go after Savile and would have done, if the evidence and level of seriousness justified it.
In 2009 the CPS decided that there was insufficient evidence; to proceed to a prosecution of Savile. Basically, Savile's accuser's, would not support their own claims, by agreeing to repeat those claims in court. A prosecution could have still gone ahead, but the chances of conviction would have been so small, such action would NOT have been - in the public interest, especially in view of the 'minor' nature of the claimed offences. The decision - making at the time, was sound. What the DPP and Police chiefs, decided in 2012 and since has been the polar opposite. I have no idea what went on back in the 70's/80's - whenever. I know what I saw happen in October 2012, and I know that it was wrong. Period !
DeleteWell said, Tom. I'm not sure any evidence of petty or trivial misconduct was on the radar for the police and, I suppose, no reason it should be. Much was made at the time of the release of the police interview from 2009, but I guess people just hear what they want to hear. https://www.theguardian.com/media/interactive/2013/oct/16/jimmy-savile-police-interview-transcript
DeleteMisa, it's funny you should mention the Police interview. Thank you for linking the censored transcript. I shall be covering the filmmakers (mis)use of that document, in my next post, and it isn't pretty !
DeleteGood! I look forward to it.
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