Jimmy Savile

Innocent till proven guilty?

Just sayin'

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.

Esther's view

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.

Well put, Grannyk.

should be last but not least.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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?].

I was amazed when the Royals got involved with him. Apparently Prince Phillip (and he doesn't suffer fools) asked him to be an adviser/cousellor to Charles and Diana when their marriage difficulties became public. How the heck did that come about? JS wasn't married, knew nothing whatsoever about relationships, had a weird obsession with his mother, was a terrible show off and was a thoroughly creepy individual. His charitable works were a credit to him but he milked that to the hilt.

I remember hearing these rumours about him from someone who worked in showbiz, over 40 years ago. But people used to take such things less seriously then.

It was ever thus. Power, opportunity, dosh for the BBC, and the killer stroke - a massive involvement with Charity. Who was going to call him with those credentials? +

I don't know why anyone is surprised at the suggestions as there have been rumours and suggestions for years that he had a dodgy and unhealthy attitude to sex and young people. If people have actively covered for him then that is equally as awful & they are guilty too if any crime has been committed.

Beats me anno. I always found him revolting!

If so many of us (and I am one) found him so creepy, why did he gain such enormous popularity?

And apparently when the rumours were put to him, he dismissed them absolutely (with a wave of one of his famous cigars, no doubt), in the full knowledge that no one in the industry would have the guts to out him.

I fear that he was very powerful and manipulative; supposedly he had a very high IQ and was very, very clever. Haven't we all worked with people that we were scared to say anything about?

Why do they say these things when people have died and have no chance of defending themselves?

He used to dj at the dance hall I went to when I was a teenager.
He was weird and all over the young girls in the coffee bar.
I actually went on a date with Ray Teret once (another weirdo) but I just accepted that they were creepy men.
I'm not a bit surprised about any of these allegations.

I also always found him creepy. He kept his mother's clothes long after her death and had them regularly cleaned and laundered. Did he wear them, I wonder? Shades of Psycho.
I think it is good to bring it out now - there are probably young women around who would be very glad to be believed.