Ping! went the computer in the middle of the night as a rash of correspondents e-mailed to warn me that yet another Savile report was out. Several pointed to the Guardian headline published a dutiful couple of minutes after the report’s embargo deadline of midnight.
“Police could have stopped Jimmy Savile in the 1960s, says official report”.
Don’t tell me that the Bebe Roberts spurious Daily Mail article had been accepted as fact, surely not! No link to any report of course, they wouldn’t want we plebs actually looking at the source and checking facts would they? It took half an hour or so to track down the report, since it was only available to the public at midnight and Google was a bit slow in finding it. The main stream media get it hours beforehand, so that they have a chance to get their agenda straight. Consequently I haven’t had a lot of much needed beauty sleep…
Once I had the report in my hand, it didn’t take long to track down the offending paragraph, page 7 actually; it is the only part of the report that could possibly be twisted into that categorical statement that ‘Savile could have been stopped’.
It is impossible to state categorically that a prosecution would have resulted, if all these links (including the MPS intelligence) had been made known, not only to all the investigating teams but also to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
OK, the Guardian headline is true only in the sense that if today’s guidelines for informing alleged victims of the presence of other alleged victims had been in place back 50 years ago the CPS might have taken a different view, and might have acted differently, and it might have resulted in Savile being taken to court, and that might have resulted in a successful prosecution? Not that this redefinition stopped a rash of commentators landing on the Guardian web site saying ‘knew it all along, protected by the mighty and the powerful, da dum, da dum’.
So what are the 1960s allegations that would have ‘stopped Savile’ – by which I presume they mean a successful prosecution, a life wasted away in a dingy Wormwood Scrubs cell, or chemical castration at the very least….after all, what else would stop a rampant paedophile from defiling an entire generation?
Drusilla Sharpling, author of the latest Savile report, is one of the Merry Knives of Winsor; Tom Winsor, author of the report currently decimating the Police ranks has a cutlery box full of them, who is the sharpest of them all, we know not. ’Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC)’ are charged with making the independent inspection of the Police which resulted in the report on pay and conditions which has so upset the rank and file.
Last November, following the hundreds of ‘Yewtree’ allegations that emerged, the Home Secretary formally commissioned HMIC to review the recording and investigation of the Yewtree allegations by police forces across England and Wales. The entire British Isles, including Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland (HMICS) and Jersey Police managed to come up with seven mentions of Savile’s name. Seven. Our Drusilla has trawled through e-mails, and intelligence reports, notebooks and incident reports, across all 43 Police forces, liaising with Jersey and Scotland, looking for all those reports of people going to their police station to report abuse by Savile and evidence of top level cover ups, favours being called in by senior officers, phone calls from prominent politicians, to prevent Savile being brought to justice…and she ended up with seven examples to base her report on?
Best look at the seven examples closely then! Actually there are more than seven examples, since Ms Sharpling includes allegations of reports as well as reported incidents somewhat confusingly, and gives them all the same credibility.
The earliest allegation of a report not being taken ‘seriously’ and not recorded we are told, was a Cheshire male in 1963. Interestingly, since this was 3 years before homosexuality was legalised; Ms Sharpling doesn’t dwell on the details, nor even point out whether the man was legally a child at that time or not. Rape, and male rape is a particularly unpleasant crime for which there is now some redress – but in an age when the victim would have been prosecuted as well as the perpetrator, it might have been kinder for Ms Sharpling to have pointed out that the advice given to him by the police – to ‘forget about it’ and ‘move on’ – was not as callous as might be seen with hindsight. The law on homosexuality would have had to be changed back in 1963 for this to be one of the occasions when Savile ‘could have been stopped’.
Then she moves onto another allegation of a report not being taken seriously and not recorded – a man claiming his girlfriend was assaulted on Top of the Pops. Also not one of Ms Sharpling’s seven incidents ‘when Savile could have been stopped’.
Finally we move onto the first five of the seven.
A 2003 MPS crime report based on the complaint of the victim who stated that Savile had indecently assaulted her in the 1970s (the 2003 MPS report);
A 2007 Surrey crime report based on the complaints of three victims who stated that Savile had indecently assaulted them in the 1970s and 1980s (the 2007 Surrey report);
A 2008 Sussex crime report based on the complaint of a victim who stated that Savile had indecently assaulted her in 1970 (the 2008 Sussex report).
Well, none of those ‘could have stopped Savile in the 1960s’ could they? They were all reported 40 years after the 1960s. Must delve deeper.
What have we here? An entry in the Metropolitan Police Services Paedophile Intelligence Unit from 1964. So these matters were taken seriously enough in 1964 to warrant an independent unit eh?
“BATTERSEA BRIDGE ROAD, (WA) – 4 older girls & youth named [name] (? Homosexual) live at – Jimmy SAVILLE (sic) well known disc jockey frequents –used by absconders from DUNCROFT APP SCHOOL”.
Wow, that’s odd. 1964, just the time when I was first an absconder from Duncroft - and living in Battersea Bridge Road! In a house rented by four older girls, who ran the fan club for The Animals, and one of the girls was Don Arden’s secretary and frequently on Top of the Pops… couldn’t be the same house could it? Had I managed to miss being mauled by Savile yet again?
I doubt it, for on the next page we find:“DUNCROFT APP SCHOOL – Absconders – Vice Ring.
[Name] ….living on (sic) immoral earnings of [names of two females identified as DUNCROFT girls].2 yrs imp.[Name]…Charged with [name] as above, also further charged with harbouring [female‟s name] – failed to appear…on 20/10/64 having estreated his bail & thought to be in Holland.
[Name], [address]. At CCC (Central Criminal Court) on 5/11/1964. Charged with living on (sic) earnings & procuring [two female names]. Found NOT GUILTY. No connection with [name and name] above, but all DUNCROFT girls.
The address (sic) used by [name and name] were [address given]. All men were coloured. [Name of female] (ex-Duncroft) introduced the girls to the men concerned.”
“All men were coloured.” Nope, must have been another group of Duncroft girls, the house I was living in was definitely not being used as a brothel, nor were there any coloured men anywhere near it. Odd that we never bumped into each other though – perhaps they were much older than I.
Still, we know that Savile was a visitor to a house of ill repute, no mention of any under age children though – could that have been enough intelligence ‘to stop Savile in the 1960s’? Is being a disc jockey and friendly with a pimp sufficient to lock someone up for life, or castrate them? I doubt it:
We have considered whether the MPS had an opportunity to intervene and halt Savile’s offending in the 1960s. We cannot say for certain, but on the basis of what we know now, there appears to have been, at the very least, an opportunity to investigate his behaviour then, although it is impossible to say whether such an investigation would have led to Savile’s prosecution.
Presumably a house of ill repute would have been under surveillance for some time? Do we have a note of all other visitors to that house, should they all have been investigated as potential paedophiles?
Then we have the seventh and final occasion on which ‘Savile could have been stopped in the 1960s’. It is an anonymous letter received in 1998. A full 38 years after ‘Savile could have been stopped in the 1960s!’ So the evidence we are left with for the Guardian’s headline is that Savile was a visitor to a house lived in by a pimp and ‘four older girls’ where some ex-Duncroft girls had at one time resided…
So much for the headlines. What of the rest of the report? Well, there is the 2003 15 year old girl who claimed that Savile ‘put his hand on her bum’. Should have been better investigated screeches Ms Sharpling, could have been tied in with the 1964 report that he was once seen going into a house of ill-repute, any fool could have seen that he was a paedophile from that alone, and what about the anonymous letter claiming he was ‘into rent boys’ – a definite pattern of behaviour emerging here…
Then there was the 2007 Surrey Police investigation into the ‘Duncroft allegations’, well, if only the CPS had known then that he had once been seen to have gone into a house in Battersea Bridge Road, and as for patting a 15 year old girl on the bum, well they would have seen the light and acted very, very, differently. It’s all the fault of the Police for following their guidelines and not telling all and sundry that this disc jockey went to a house of (adult female) ill repute even though he was into rent boys…
So says the Independent Inspector of Constabulary in the report that hardly anyone will bother to read. Absolutely clearing the CPS of any blame in the matter.
Handy that, for you’ll never guess who was Head of the CPS for the metropolitan district at the time – oh look, Drusilla Sharpling, now Independent Inspector of the Constabulary.
Would you ever!
*My apologies to my readers who are bored stiff with this subject, but I am determined to get these things down as a matter of record – one day people will look back and ask how it came about that an entire nation was groomed…and not by Savile! The apologies are necessary for after an hour or two’s sleep, there will be a second post today – this is not the only piece of shite to come out regarding Savile today…spelling errors will be amended then, too tired right now. Feel free to sub-edit in the comments.