Jimmy Savile

I just find it unbelievable reading the article about Anne Atkins,what kind oof world is that woman living in and to know that another person she information about is still walking free,abet in another country but there is no differance where he lives in my mind,and she is supposed to be an educated woman ? I think not !
Now that the Police are offically involved I feel sure a lot of people are awaiting for the early morning knock on the door and rightly so,I have noticed that Freddie Starr has kept a low profile since his name was mentioned and him claiming to be T-total I have the misfortune to have known him since his days when he was in The Delmont's and he was the most creepy person I have ever known,maybe he has changed over the years but I doubt it very much.

When I was about 7 a boy in the class died during the long school holidays. (leukaemia possibly?) My mother told me, and I felt a bit sad that day - mainly because he was the first boy ever to show me some minor attention (wanted to work with me and told another boy "threes a crowd" - ahhh ). But bereaved or traumatised I was not.
It was not mentioned when we went back to school. Suspect these days a big fuss would be made. It is certainly a big change in society.

A girl who was in my Girl Guide patrol died of leukaemia during the summer holidays. We were told, but no great fuss was made, I didn't even feel particularly shocked, and counsellors didn't exist in the '50s. A boy in my year at school also died of leukaemia and I felt a bit guilty because I hadn't liked him and had once let down his bike tyres - yes, I was a charmer - but it didn't prey on my mind for long. I don't think it was even mentioned at assembly but the news went round on the grapevine. So much has changed in half a century!

Not Jimmy Saville but on the same destressing subject.
Did anyone read the article by Anne Atkins in the Mail yesterday.
To cut a long story short; she knows of a peadeophile and will not say anything because it might upset her friend (he being the one that was abused)
This from a woman who spouts on about her ' christianity ' at every opportunity on television. Left me speechless.

petra - see above, several posts back!

The woman who was claiming to be Jimmy Saville's love child has gone very quiet. Maybe she's decided any money she might get is not worth the future hassle?

I think there must be some substance to the amount of "alleged" abuse, but can anyone remember after Saville died a lady wrote about him that she lived with him on and off for years and they were close??

not heard zilch from her!!

Do wonder if lot of these have come forward hoping for compensation.

Is scandalous reading also in yesterdays mail that his great niece was a victim and the grandmother kept quiet !! so she would not lose her perks from Saville, appalling.

I was a bit shocked by Polly Toynbee on the Daily Politics show today. Andrew Neil asked if next week will be bad for the BBC, re Jimmy Savile story. Panorama is doing a story on the fact Newsnight abandoned a story.

She defended the BBC accusing the 'written press' and Murdoch'a papers in particular of hating the BBC and trying to pin it all on them. She said "Nobody knew or nobody had the evidence, if they suspected. So let's hope it doesn't get just pinned on the BBC." "Let's hope we see the evidence of just how great a story it was" !.

That to me indicates she sees very little wrong with the behaviour of the BBC. Would she back an, inquiry so quickly into the BBC as she did over phone hacking I wonder.?

Well, she's supposedly one of us (a GN'er) so perhaps she will give an answer on this thread?

POGS There is something of a difference. The BBC is not accused of organising sexual abuse, while the Murdoch Press was accused of organising phone hacking. It seems fairly clear that some senior figures in the BBC did deliberately turn a blind eye to the rumours as Jimmy Savile was such a valuable commodity, but no one – victim or witness – came forward with an outright accusation. Blameworthy probably but not wholly guilty perhaps. Surely a witch hunt against the BBC would be ureasonable.

It all seems a bit unclear to me exactly what JS has or is supposed to have done.. is it just inappropriate behaviour or is he being accused of actually having sex? I'm not sure of the facts?

helshea The police are still investigating numerous complaints from both men and women who were young, often underage – one boy was nine years old, I read – at the time of the alleged assaults. There have been a few details here and there but nothing very specific, as you would expect if there is to be some sort of legal case (obviously not against Savile himself). Inappropriate touching rather than full penetrative sex seems to be the keynote, but that is still abuse even if it isn't rape. (I have not heard any mention of oral sex, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that it is not in the public domain.) It is going to take a long time to get to the full, or as full as possible story.

Have read loads of articles and it is so unclear what he is actually supposed to have done.. I fear that inappropriate behaviour today was not classed as such years ago. It is so easy for the news and papers to imply things and let everyone else make the rest up? I have to say I never liked the man, but I find it all a little weird to say the least..

There have been accusations of rape against Jimmy Savile. One woman said she had to have an abortion as a result.

Almost certainly more than inappropriate touching. Sorry -can't reveal my source!

We have to wait and see as the law takes its course.

I am not sure it should make any difference, when considering the culpability or otherwise of the BBC & other institutions in ignoring complaints against JS, if the young people were 'just' sexually assaulted or raped.

Both assault and rape are unacceptable. The only person who is totally to blame is the person who perpetrated the acts not the youngsters or the institutions where they took place. The institutions may well be guilty of not taking the victims seriously and of deliberately hushing up/not investigating rumours but they did not abuse a child.

Do not let this argument detract from finding the truth about the allegations of sexual assault.

I find it appalling that some are suggestions that people are only making claims of assault for compensation in an attempt to try to undermine what may turn out to be very genuine cases of sexual abuse.

Spot on nanaej. Compassion for those children who were harmed, in whatever way, is needed. No amount of compensation can make things better.

My grand-daughter had shared a locker with Megan Russell on the day she was murdered, along with her mother, Lynne - her sister Josie was left brain damaged. All the children and staff at Goodnestone School were offered counselling. My daughter had an extreme reaction - her husband was working abroad, and she took to making all four children sleep in her bedroom and pulling the wardrobe over the door. My five-year old grandson began obsessive hand-washing and developed strange attitudes - only his mother was allowed to touch his food.
I have always felt that it was their mother's reaction, rather than the actual terrible event, which had such a bad effect on my grandchildren

Many children do not understand the significance of inappropriate touching and I feel it is better to leave them .in happy ignorance providing they have just been made to feel uncomfortable by it. We have now reached the ridiculous position where a teacher cannot put an arm round a distressed child, or even put a plaster on a wound. We are loading our own fearful attitudes onto children.

As for Ann Atkins - the most smug, patronising contributor to Thought for the Day, and now, apparently, a hypocrite as well.

is very hard, but I do think t he worst of all is that a grandmother covered up abuse of her grand daughter Savilles great niece so as not to lose her house, money etc from him.

It seems dreadful going by her article in Saturdays paper.

The whole thing is very strange, especially the people who were aware of it, and did nothing, shame on them.

Agree Greatnan is very sad when I worked in play group years ago we still were not supposed to cuddle or pick the little ones up, is so sad. There was a little girl who kept crying but I was told not to pick her up tho her little arms were out stretched!!

I am so angry and have got to get this off my chest. The subject of JS cropped up recently in conversation and 'a man' began expounding his theories. His take on the issue was that, "in those days, it was normal for these kinds of things to happen, to girls and to boys..just look at all the stories about paedophile priests and the casting couches of film producers..its all a big fuss about nothing". When they had scraped me off the ceiling, I turned on this man with such venom. I couldn't believe that someone I knew could hold these views. I said, "these were not starlets hustling for film parts, they were the vulnerable dispossessed; hospital patients; young children unable to defend themselves and to whom no-one would listen, what on earth are you thinking?!!!" He responded with more idiotic comments which roused me even higher. Eventually, he skulked off with a sigh, saying "women!" under his breath. Is it any wonder these things happen when so many, seemingly, normal men hold such views?

I wonder how these men would feel about their children, sisters and wives being groped and molested? It's never been normal to assault women and children. It riles me when some men make these comments, and other men don't challenge them

Well done for speaking up, Specki! I got into a discussion at a dinner party last night - not really acrimonious just a debate, but one man said he thought it was all right for 9 year old girls to be married to much older men in certain parts of the world because it is their 'culture' . I had just read an article in National Geographic about child brides in India which was heart-rending. Most of the girls have no knowledge of sex so we can only guess their pain and terror when they are legally raped by their husbands.

I don't think all child brides go to live with their husbands immediately after their marriage. I think in some places they stay with their own families until they are at least teenagers. I still think it's an appalling custom and one I should like to see die out.

I was visiting a friend the other day and her daughter was also there. She laughed and said her husband had sent her some 'brilliant' (?) jokes through his phone about JS. She didn't comment further when one of us had commented, "That's no joke", or something similar. No doubt there will be loads of these sick 'jokes' being passed around, but how anyone can think of doing so should surely be thinking about how they'd feel if their own child had suffered at this vile person's hands.