In A BBC Dressing Room With Savile, Savile And Savile 1973.

 On Saturday May 5th 1973 the first episode of Clunk Click was transmitted on BBC1 at 6.15pm. I don't know offhand who Jimmy Savile's guests for that week were, but I do know that a lady journalist from the Radio Times, visited Jimmy in his dressing room. And - as if one Savile wasn't enough for any lady to cope with, poor Jenny Lees, got three of them. 

I write this because it's a nice article and it cropped up in my Twitter account a few days ago, quite begging to be shared - so here it is. 

 

"A wonderful mum" says John. "She taught us all that if you can't help other people, there's no point in living"

That week in May 1973, Jimmy Savile O.B.E wasn't just on the telly - he was on the radio too. He may even have hosted that week's Top Of The Pops, I haven't checked. It seemed like he was everywhere, one simply couldn't escape him. 

Anyway, I hope this gives someone a lift as there's not much to smile about at the moment. And in that gloomiest of glooms - that den of inequity known as our parliament, another awful man has just been elected to the highest office. October/November 2011 seemed a nicer place somehow, even in that den, some 26 nice people did something nice for someone else. 

               

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/43425/sir-jimmy-savile-obe

It's a shame Mr Corbyn never got a chance to lead us. Good people always seem to be punished. I wonder why ?

Rolf Harris Book

 

Before you've paid even one penny for the above book, you know it's going to be good. For the first time, someone has put into words what people like me have been saying for years. YES, people will lie about sexual abuse, and YES, it will generally be for money.

Thank you Mr Merritt. I hope you don't mind me publishing just a few snippets from your book. You see, I've been doing what you did for Rolf, but - for the original victim of 'Operation Yewtree' : Sir Jimmy Savile. 

And then there's this : Once them liars made a civil claim, there was no going back. What the actual hell ?

I'll end with this. Let's hope those 'historians' are studying recent history, so people including the aged Rolf Harris, get to savour the moment. 

The Most Influential Liar : Part 4.

Film makers often describe their finished product as being  based-on either : a 'true story' or 'on actual events'. "Jimmy Savile : A British Horror Story" is such a film. Jimmy Savile was a hugely famous and much-loved - television star in Great Britain for almost half-a-century. 

There'd been gossip about him, just as there was and is, about many public figures, the difference being that the rumours and gossip that went on about him, involved his - alleged liking for : 'little girls'. Not one press article ventilating that rumour appeared until months after Savile died. Hold on to that fact reader. Not one newspaper published ANYTHING of the sort until someone got wind of Meirion Jones' story, and when they did, the press in general, still made little of it until ITV decided to make a television programme, and the rest is history, as they say.

For that reason, I've giving Mr Jones' contribution to this film special attention. After all, had it not been for him, any film based on Savile's life might have been quite different. My point being : was what Meirion Jones had on Jimmy Savile, enough to justify what he did when he died ?

He's a slippery character this Meirion Jones. Let's hear exactly what he says in this film, without the interruption of other 'witnesses'.

1)

"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".

2)

"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, uh, 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".

3) 

"This was key moment. When I read that interview that Lynn Barber had done,, I mean - she was, best interviewer in the business at that point, I just thought : 'ooo', suddenly she's mentioning these paedophile rumours. It's there in BLACK AND WHITE". (pause more music) It turns out of-course, that this was far more horrific than I could ever have imagined". 

"From that moment on, it was open, I mean : what was the real story about Jimmy Savile". (I assume he's referring to Barber's piece again). 

4)

"My investigation into Jimmy Savile, began by chance. My aunt ran Duncroft, a youth detention centre. Savile arrives when I'm probably about 16. He kept turning up. I thought it was strange. (pause, music, Jones pinning stuff to a wall as per investigators do). In the 90's I became a journalist. At that point I was working at the BBC - radio news. I remember talking with other people, celebrity gossip, sometimes you heard 'Savile underage girls', I would say : 'where do you know that from' and I would try and see if that led anywhere. But when I tried to track them down, I could never find a witness or a victim. The trail went blank when you tried to follow that trail".

"Back then I thought it was simple, I just had to get the evidence, to catch him. I didn't realise, the whole world around him, had to change, before the truth could come out".

5)

"I'd suspected that things had gone on. That there'd been sexual assaults. By Savile. BUT, we needed evidence. Most of the evidence is going to be eyewitness accounts. Of the victims, who are young and often vulnerable. 'Can we find any victims ?'".

Screen : He's dialling up the internet on Windows 94.

"Maybe once a year if I had some spare time, I'd search for Duncroft. It's one of those things on my list of 'back stories' that I returned (?) and see if I could find anything, and you cannot. There was no references.

"2009/10 I started seeing stuff popping up on Friends Reunited - an early social media network. There were hints that something had gone on at Duncroft from girls, now mature women. Nothing you could quite put your finger on, but there's something about there conversations - HINTS, that there's been a police investigation.

Now take a look at what pops up on screen as he speaks about exactly when he came upon the Duncroft Approved School Account. He actually 'joined it'. You can see the welcome message in the top right hand corner. Sorry if it's not very clear to you. It was only there for a second. I had to move fast with my camera.

The 'old perv' looks like it was been posted on the 15th September 2010 as a recent message, so we can safely assume that Jones joined this group account around that time. We'd need to see other print outs of which he appears to have hundreds, but that would be for another film, not this one, obviously. 

Bottom left-hand corner reads :

'Past Reunions at Duncroft Approved School : 

TBA Took place on 23rd March 2008 For members who left 1982-1988.

Crowns Wood School Took place on 18th October 2008. For members who left in the years 1958-2008. 

Past reunions ? The last being October 2008. Had Meirion taken a few years off searching for Duncroft stuff online, or were the entries just not juicy enough to have have him depressing that 'register now' button ?

Karin "Ha ! 'gentleman' surely don't do the kind of things HE did to teenage care home girls !". 19-?-2010.

Caro "Did you say gentleman !!! Lol". 19-09-2008. 

Jones' printouts are interesting when one compares them to the five pages of comments that were included in Appendix 12 of the Pollard Report. 

Of particular interest to me, is the comment from 'R6' dated 9th July 2011, because it's one that Jones reads.

In Pollard this comment - if it is the same one, appears much shorter than the one Jones now reads :

"I was contacted by the police but don't wanna do it on my own. I really think we ought to do something. The more girls say something the better chance we have of getting him exposed. I would love to see him get his just deserves". 

Was he reading the same comment that was in the Pollard Report ? It starts and ends the same, but the rest is different. In Pollard, we get to see the poster's tag : 'R6', but here it's just a blur. 

And, who was 'Caro' responding to in September 2008 ?

Doesn't make sense does it ? Not if your fact-checking, which isn't something that's relevant to this film. It's Jimmy Savile who's the 'tricky' one, in this script. 

What did Jones tell the Pollard Inquiry ? 

When did Karin Ward join Friends Reunited ? Was it 2010 or was it 2008 ? Jones tells us he didn't find her 'fanstory' until 2011. I wonder ?

What he told his boss a few days after Savile died :

'14 year old girls' ? They were always 14 weren't they ? Even they said they were 14, when they weren't !  Meirion Jones' star 'victim' claimed she'd been just 14 when she attended an episode of Savile's TV show. A lie she was able to maintain until she had to confirm her date of birth, on oath, before a Judge. 

Then I just happened to come across the Freddie Starr Judgement. I don't think I ever read it before. What a difference having to swear on oath to tell the truth, can have on a woman who clearly lied for a living !

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2015/1987.html

Mr Justice Nicol :

1. This has been the trial of claims for slander and libel brought by the comedian and entertainer, Freddie Starr, against Karin Ward. They arise out of an interview which Ms Ward gave to the BBC in November 2011 and to ITV in October 2012 and the subsequent broadcasts of parts of those interviews and also out of online publications made by Ms Ward.

1974: the background

1. Ms Ward was born on 25^th March 1958. She had a troubled family background including, she says, sexual assault by her step father. She also shoplifted on a number of occasions. When she was about 14 she was sent to Duncroft Approved School ('Duncroft') in Surrey. There were about 25 girls at the school. The Headmistress was Margaret Jones.
2. While Ms Ward was at Duncroft she met Jimmy Savile ('Savile'). She says that she and other girls at Duncroft were sexually abused by Savile. In return they were given cigarettes and also the opportunity to attend Savile's TV shows. Savile was particularly known for a show called 'Jim'll Fix It'. But another show was a programme called 'Clunk Click' on which guests appeared with Savile in front of a studio audience. 'Clunk Click' was not broadcast live, but recorded in advance of transmission.
3. One episode of 'Clunk Click' was filmed on 7^th March 1974. Ms Ward and about 4 other girls from Duncroft attended as part of the studio audience. On that date Ms Ward was 15. One of the guests on that episode of 'Clunk Click' was Freddie Starr. He was 32 at the time and was well known as a comedian and entertainer.

1. Ms Ward wrote an account of some of the incidents in her life on a website called 'FanStory'. She says that she started this exercise in 2008. For that reason it is convenient to take it first. However, the Particulars of Claim pleaded that the words were only defamatory of the Claimant after 8^th October 2012, by which time the Defendant says she had taken this part of her account down from the website. In the course of his closing submissions, Mr Dunham, on the Claimant's behalf, accepted that he had no evidence to contradict what the Defendant said about the date when the story was taken down. He accepted that this part of the Claimant's case could not succeed.

She 'started' 'Fanstory' in 2008 ? Did she publish it in 2008 ? Did Meirion Jones, see it ? WTF knows ? One thing he MUST have known in November 2011, was that Karin Ward was NOT 14 when she attended that TV show that Freddie Starr guested on. She was less than three weeks off her 16th birthday. 

Meirion Jones obviously didn't care about the fact that Ward told lies. All that mattered to him was the fact that she would continue to do so, on camera, in order for him to get a ten-minute slot on Newsnight. 

 

1. On 22^nd October 2012 BBC broadcast a 'Panorama' programme. It included footage of the Claimant. A narrator then said,

'Among the guests on Clunk Click were young people from hospitals and other institutions, including girls from Duncroft. Karin Ward, aged just 14, was one of them. After the show, she was invited with other young people to join more famous guests in the dressing rooms. She told Newsnight about this 11 months ago in the interview that was dropped'.

This judgement was published on the 10th July 2015. Three-and-a-half years after ITV and the BBC together, destroyed Savile's name.

Oh, and - as an aside : Williams-Thomas said on oath that Karin Ward never told him she was only 14, back then. 

1. The Claimant also argues that the words had an innuendo meaning. He has pleaded that the ITN journalist was told by the Defendant that at the relevant time she was a fourteen year old schoolgirl. With that knowledge, the words which the Defendant spoke meant to him that the Claimant had groped and thereby sexually assaulted a fourteen year old schoolgirl whom he had also humiliated and frightened and, for this reason, he was a paedophile.
2. The ITN journalist was Mark Williams-Thomas. He says that he cannot recall the Defendant telling him that she was 14 at the time. He does remember knowing that she was still at school at the time and was under 16. He was not cross examined about this evidence.

Back to the film :

"At the beginning of 2011 I came across Karin Ward's account. You know, that was the real breakthrough because that was a lucid, proper story telling everything that happened. I found it cos I was googling : 'Duncroft Fanstory dot com. So now, Ive got a story written very convincingly. Ninety-nine percent of which I know is true".

Ninety-nine percent he knew to be true - really ? Here's a taster of that account from an email Jones sent to Mark Williams-Thomas on 23rd November 2011.

The Pollard Report can be quite difficult to find. Here's a link to the wonderfully informative : Appendix 12.

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/pdf/pollard/appendix_12.pdf

I hope it doesn't disappear ! 

And the rest is pretty much history as they say. 

Why did Meirion Jones set out to convince people that Jimmy Savile was a 'paedophile' ? One forms impressions of people just from reading their Twitter accounts. Jones obviously hates seeing others getting the praise he believes belongs to him and him alone. Laugh Out Loud, as they say ! 

Bless you Sylvia ! 

 

The Most Influential Liar : Part 3

 After Andrew Neil, there's a bit about Savile's childhood via Alison Bellamy. From her 'research' material, she produces his bible, which this segues nicely into Mark Lawson, recollections of seeing Savile in a church and the importance of the Catholic church in his story. 

Next : Jones 

"I'd suspected that things had gone on. That there'd been sexual assaults. By Savile. BUT, we needed evidence. Most of the evidence is going to be eyewitness accounts. Of the victims, who are young and often vulnerable. 'Can we find any victims ?'".

Screen : He's dialling up the internet on Windows 94.

"Maybe once a year if I had some spare time, I'd search for Duncroft. It's one of those things on my list of 'back stories' that I returned (?) and see if I could find anything, and you cannot. There was no references.

Screen : "In 1994 ANOTHER JOURNALIST IS PUT IN CONTACT WITH TWO FORMER PUPILS FROM DUNCROFT".

Paul Connew introduces himself to his global audience : "In 1994 I was the editor of the Sunday Mirror, er, a national newspaper in the UK". 

I'm not covering his bit in detail, his story is fairly well documented, but he is asked an interesting question :

"Was it not something you might have told the Police about ?".

"I did, in fact, tell a fairly senior police officer contact. He basically said : 'look, unless we've got clear evidence - almost film and footage of these things, juries are probably not gonna believe them.

Connew's evidence is thus : hearsay. 

Next Mike Hames, former Head of the National Paedophile Unit.

On Screen : "IN 1995 Britain FORMS IT'S FIRST POLICE UNIT DEDICATED TO THE CRIME OF CHILD SEX ABUSE".

Hames' main contribution is to explain how devious paedophiles are, and the fact that in 1998, four years after he'd left the force, his former colleagues allegedly received an anonymous letter about Savile, which was passed to Leeds Police, and never heard of again. (FILE UNDER HEARSAY).

Alison Bellamy again : "We sort of became friends". She attended the infamous : 'Friday Morning Club' at Savile's flat wherein the subject of letters from 'nutters' might crop up.

SCREEN : "A JUNIOR POLICE OFFICER PASSES THE ANONYMOUS LETTER TO A SENIOR INSPECTOR WHO TELLS HIM THE MATTER IS 'IN HAND'. IT IS NOT FILED OR INVESTIGATED".

Bear in mind, the quoted letter is the one Hames references. I'm sure that's been covered elsewhere, so I'll leave it at that.

More archive footage of Savile with a voice-over from Bellamy. Theroux' question in the car, Jim'll FIX It, Big Brother, Lawson, Lawson and backwards and forwards to Bellamy because now we're in a new century, and Jimmy Savile is still in demand : "He loved the attention. He thrived on it".

She tells us that her editor had asked her to get Savile to talk about the 'rumours'. We hear a voice-over of Savile being asked about the 'nasty rumours', on something called : Newstalk. 

Bellamy : "Because it was his 80th Birthday I wrote a series of features about him. She did and his response was 'Oh that's a load of baloney, it comes with the territory. When I was a DJ  they would be queuing up outside the dressing room door, these groupies. Why have I not been charged ? There's never been any trial or anything'. He was quite adamant. He was quite keen to show his conscience was clear.

I didn't want it to be true. It did make me think, and it was at the back of my mind. You know, because I was a journalist. If it was a story, I would have tried to chase it or get the story. You know, I was younger and I was  ambitious and keen, you know. I couldn't find ANY evidence of it and I mean I could not, heard of any victims and certainly not in Leeds, anyway. The area I covered.

Savile switches off Top Of The Pops Studio lights for the last time. And then :

An alleged victim gives her account. followed by :

Screen : "IN MAY 2007 SURREY POLICE ARE CONTACTED BY A WOMAN WHO WITNESSED AN INCIDENT AT DUNCROFT 30 YEARS EARLIER. AN INVESTIGATION IS LAUNCHED".

Bellamy : "He always used to say, 'it might all end tomorrow', So, why would it end tomorrow ?. I remember saying to him - 'Why will it end tomorrow ?' and he said, 'No, I love it. It might all end tomorrow". Obviously, these words are supposed to mean something sinister, because the next screen :

"THE POLICE FIND 3 MORE WOMEN WITH ALLEGATIONS WHICH CORROBORATED THE FIRST. JIMMY SAVILE IS REQUESTED FOR AN INTERVIEW UNDER CAUTION".

Next, the screen fills with the image of a tape cassette and the words : "1st OCTOBER 2009" 

In smaller print underneath : This audio is based on the original transcripts 

Bellamy recalls how these events affected Savile at the time.

"There was something amuck (amok). He was very upset and the police had been in touch with him from down South. He went to be questioned, I think it was down at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, erm, and he was most unhappy about this".

*"I remember him saying, he was having to get in touch with his lawyer and I asked him what it was about, but he didn't go into detail, about-the-claims. And he said it was a historic claim, from years ago, about something".

Bellamy's testimony is interspersed with the audio recording 'based on the original transcripts'. 'Based on' ? What exactly did this mean ? I decided to check what I was hearing with the official transcripts of the recording that was released to the public. 

Here's what I found :

There are just TWO voices on this 'recording' 'based om the original transcripts. The audience is not told, that there were actually FOUR people in the room where the 'out of custody interview' took place, in Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Savile waived his right to have a lawyer present. Instead, a friend from the hospital, sat in.

Here's how the film presents the event. You can read them yourself here. 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/interactive/2013/oct/16/jimmy-savile-police-interview-transcript

 "Ok, this interview is being tape recorded. I'm Detective Constable (Bleep) from Surrey Police. What's ya full name ?" . 

"James Wilson Savile".

"You said earlier, it was ok to call you Jimmy ?".

"That's my name, yes !".

"So, just before I make you aware of what's been alleged, I'll just read out the caution. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence, if you do not mention when questioned something, which you later rely on in court. And anything you do say, may be given in evidence".

"I'll say everything. I've had so much of this in fifty years you know, it's always is, there's someone looking for a few quid or a story from the papers.

"What we'll do Jimmy, I'm not being rude stopping you there. I will give you a chance to say, it's just important to get this instruction bit done". (By instruction, she means the caution that she's already done !).

"You didn't interrupt me". 

Bellamy (see* above).

Back to the 'recording' :

"Did you specifically go to Duncroft, knowing it was an all-girls place, to receive sexual gratification ?".

"That is a complete flight of fantasy"..

She coughs : "She said that when you visited D she showed you across to a place called Norman Lodge".

"Nah, I can't remember that".

Did you ever give her, what she calls 'a blow job ?".

"Out of the question".

"So did you ask for a massage from the girls when you visited Duncroft ?".

"Not at all - NEVER".

"Did you ask them to comb your hair, at all ?".

"No".

"Why would these girls say this about you ?".

"We always get something like this coming round at Xmas - cos we all want a few quid at Xmas, right ? Normally you can just brush them away like midges. They will try blackmail - 'If you don't send us money, I will say that - you've done this and you've done that. They just like causing trouble. Now, that's why I have, up in Yorkshire where I live in Leeds, a collection of senior police persons - who come to me socially, but I give them all my weirdo letters, and they take them back to the station".

"You stated - at the very beginning of this interview, your 'policy' on this sort of thing ?".

"Policy ? Yes ! I have now alerted my legal team, that we may, be doing business. See, I'm known in the trade as 'litigious' - pull people into court, no messing - 'Oh dear, I've been wronged - ah, ah, ah. Dreadful (noise of gavel being banged on table) £200 grand. Five times I've done that - I'd rather not.

If this disappears - it disappears. If it doesn't, then YOU YOUNG LADY, will finish up at the Old Bailey, as well as everyone else".

"If I just end the interview there. It's 11.40 and I shall stop the tape".

That's it. That's how these film makers handled such a serious aspect of the whole story - they trivialised it. They've used an actor who produces a very good replication of Savile's voice - as if he's been rehearsing for some time, possibly on a television drama ? Who knows and who cares ? I don't. I care about what was actually said by real people, not fakes - playing a part, for cash.

Here's the official transcript.

Dishonest isn't it ? These people couldn't even be bothered to write a proper 'script' for their performer's. The real police should attend to this, but they won't - it's only Jimmy Savile.

I'm almost at the end of my coverage of this truly appalling film. Straight after the audio ends :

Screen : "THE THREE WOMEN MAKING ALLEGATIONS ARE RELUCTANT TO GO TO TRIAL. THEY EACH BELIEVE THEY WILL BE THE ONLY COMPLAINANT. THE POLICE DO NOT INFORM THEM THAT THEY ARE NOT ALONE".

Another bit from Bellamy, who asks Savile, what happened "with that inquiry thing ?. 

"He just brushed it aside, as if famous people had this to put up with, all the time. And it was just part of his fame and - not to worry about it".

Savile voice-over saying he's a very tricky fella. Not clever, tricky.

Screen : " FOUR WEEKS LATER PROSECUTORS DROP THE INVESTIGATION ON THE BASIS THAT THERE IS NO REASONABLE PROSPECT OF INVESTIGATION".

Next up : How Jones found his 'victims'. 

Remember - he's already said how - maybe once a year, if he had any spare time, he'd look for stuff online about Duncroft ?

"2009/10 I started seeing stuff popping up on Friends Reunited - an early social media network. There were hints that something had gone on at Duncroft from girls ... now mature women. Nothing you could quite put your finger on, but there's something about there conversations - HINTS, that there's been a police investigation.

Jones produces a large file of what appear to be, print outs of web pages. We get to see a few of them.

On 19th September 2008 someone calling herself 'Caro' is responding to something someone has said about a 'gentleman'. You will note that Fiona only comes into the conversation in 2011. Where was she in 2008 ? Where was Meirion Jones for that matter ? Was he not scouring the internet for Duncroft gossip in 2008 ? Slap bang in the middle of the Police operation ? Apparently NOT ! Moreover, that 2008 poster is NOT included in the few pages of screenshots in the Pollard Report. I checked ! 

To be continued