Jimmy Savile

I knew of someone who was a paedophile and he was nothing like you would expect a paedophile to be [unless you knew what to look out for, which other people did; I thought they were being unfair at the time]. Jimmy Savile seemed so much like what you'd expect such a person to be you almost thought he couldn't be [does that make sense?].

How many years ago is it that he headed for Glencoe, buying a cottage there....was he keeping his head down perhaps?
How many other paedophiles have hidden their nasty habits behind apparently good works?

Thinking back to my teenage years there was an awful lot of all sorts of abuse of women going on. Celebrities groping young girls, pop stars sleeping with under age fans etc, etc. Was J Saville so very different? I seem to remember squeaky clean Cliff being considered odd at the time. We've come a long way since then.

We used to just think they were dirty old men, we didn't think or know about paedophiles.

That's true, Ella, and we thought they were just after young girls - the idea of men preying on children was never mentioned or discussed.

One excuse put forward by the catholic church was that they did not realise it was harmful to children!

I am not sure if the reports are true or not, but I do not understand why people leave these accusations until the person accused is dead and unable to answer for themselves. Will they gain monetary wise for their stories, or is it just to make them feel better about telling what happened? Certainly Jimmy Saville raised a lot of money for charity, so let's give him credit for that.

I think it frequently happens that these things come out after the perpetrator has died for lots of reasons e.g. guilt, shame, uncertainty about what they experienced, disassociating themselves from the event, now feeling safe etc - and last but not lease searching for closure. And when one person comes forward it often opens the floodgates so to speak. So I doubt it has to do with money, but of course it may have. I'm always sorry for the families when something like this comes out, but out it must. What an awful, creepy old clown he was. I hope all his charity work eased his conscience, if he had one.

should be last but not least.

Well put, Grannyk.

PRINTMISS as a caller on tv said this morning, the victims get strength and courage from others coming forward too.
In my teenage years a couple of things happened to me that I didn't report to anyone, simple because it was much too daunting, and I just put them out of my mind.

Esther's view

There was more of it around than will ever come to light, but the fact he'd put himself in such an advantageous position where parents were unwittingly aiding him. Ba****d.

Innocent till proven guilty?

Just sayin'

I would usually agree with that view, baubles, but in this case there really doesn't seem to be much doubt. All those people haven't suddenly decided to blacken JS's name on a whim, and the girls' stories are all remarkably similar.

It is difficult baublesbanglesandb to judge with so many people now coming out, they can't all be climbing on the band wagon. And as someone has already pointed out there is strength in numbers, pointing the finger at the time , on your own would have been very hard especially at someone who had such a high profile. But he is now dead and we may never know the whole truth.

What about that woman who says she's his daughter? Is her mother still alive I wonder?

There was absolutely no mention of him on BBC's news yesterday, inspite of the allegations being all over the newspapers and a top item on ITV's news.

He was certainly a very odd man but not necessarily a bad one. I have no knowledge of illegal sexual activity, but if it happened, it does need to be addressed and "put in in its proper place" for the sake of those to whom it happened.

At the risk of being shot down, and leaving aside for the moment the "innocent until proven guilty" issues, I feel that there might be some common ground between those abused by Catholic priests and those claiming abuse by Jimmy Saville.

In both cases there seems to be a very long gap between the alleged abuse and the alleged vistims coming forward. I would suggest that in both cases the social standing of those accused seems to almost put them "beyond reproach". (Not really the phrase I'm looking for, but hopefully you will know what I mean).

In many communities the priest was seen as the ultimate authority, and whose word was not to be questioned.

*phoenix *I'm not sure whether you're right (I shall think about it), but I certainly know what you mean.

Thank you absent and for not mentioning my typo! I will be interested to read the results of your pondering.

I wish I could remember which (autobiographical) book I read that included reference to a similar thing. It might have been "Tis", by Frank McCourt, who also wrote "Angelas Ashes"

Seems he may have been involved in the Jersey children's home case

Surely if one person had so many different accusations of abuse over many years from different sources alarm bells should have rang out loudly?

Was it over many years though - the accusations? Haven't the alledged victims only recently spoken out?