Jimmy Savile

Yes. Agree Merlotgran.

jingle - where on earth do you read into any of our posts that we are tarring all celebs with the same brush? I mentioned Oliver Reed an Bill Wyman whose affairs with under-age girls were common knowledge. Otherwise, only Saville has been mentioned.

Of course there was the egregious Jonathan King – who also always seemed a bit creepy – and there was some radio DJ, I think, who was jailed somewhere in Eastern Europe for sexual abuse of boys. Someone has already mentioned Gary Glitter. Celebrities have opportunities as well as a level of "protection" that other abusers don't.

And Pete Townshend who will always now be tarred with the brush with which he foolishly decided to paint himself.

I fell asleep part way through, but was confused as to why the one woman continued to get into Savile's car knowing what was going to happen. As for Ms Ranzen, it does seem that, at time like, these ex 'celebs' seem happy to reappear and have a few more minutes of fame. On the subject of celebs and children I saw a programme on BBC4 where two children were interviewing Kenny Everett and it was one of the most charming interviews I've ever come across. I never quite forgave him after his appearance at the Conservative Party Conference, but I had forgotten how funny he was. As I was doing quite a lot of channel hopping last night,I did find myself laughing out loud whenever I switched over to one of his old shows. As for husbands [or in my case ex husbands] mine thought it funny to, one night on his way to the pub, get his mate to phone me up and breathe heavily into the phone [obviously knowing I was alone at the time]. And, when I came back from a craft fair [I had the children with me that day as well] he also couldn't understand why I was upset that, as I was stood at a stall a man standing behind me suddenly stood very close and started whispering awful, digusting things into my ear. All I did was gather the children together and leave..didn't even mention it to the security guards.

Julian Pettifer.

One of the interesting things about JS - and sorry if i have missed someone else making this point, is that he presented himself as a very non-sexual creature with his weird hair and his silly persona.

Even to the point of making himself totally physically repulsive! Along with his comments about hating children [though he admitted as much in his programme with Lois Theroux]. I also read that he didn't have a computer..again a man with a very high IQ using his intellect to outwit the system.

Greatnan - there are a couple of posts, which I'm not going to single out.

The "where on earth" bit is a little bit overdone.

Jingle, if you make such a comment you should be prepared to back it up. We have had our fill of vague allegations. Which posts implied that all celebrities were child molesters?

Oh FGS!

" I wouldn't be surprised if numerous women have suffered abuse from famous actors, pop, stars and sportsmen."

"I bet there's some very nervous showbiz people worrying about the next knock on the door."

Happy now?

I am not criticising those posts.

There seems to be an awful lot of hindsight about many people's comments. There are plenty of creepy and peculiar people about - and we have all come across them in our time. It doesnt, however, follow that because they are creepy they must be paedophiles. There are plenty who arent.

We are also forgetting how knowledge and attitudes to paedophilia have changed in the last 25 years or so. When I was in my 20s and 30s the world was awash with vicar and choir boy jokes and society as a whole had no comprehension of the extent or devastating effects of paedophilia.

Many of the accusations against Jimmy Saville - and the cover-ups, date back to a time when attitudes were very different. I am not defending Jimmy Saville, if he did what he did then it was behaviour beyond the pale at any time and he should have been prosecuted. But from all the jokes and inuendos of the period I think if most people thought about what they were referring to in them, and I doubt many did, it was in terms of inappropriate pawing and language certainly not rape or serious sexual assault.

We cannot judge peoples actions 25 or 30 years ago by current standards. It is worth bearing in mind that 20 or 30 years from now we will be being condemned for some attitude we have now which we find perfectly acceptable and which 30 years from now will be considered abhorrent.

I don't agree that we cannot judge wrong-doing by today's standards. Child abuse was always wrong, however people made light of it. The people who were damaged by it did not think it was funny. This was exactly the excuse used by the catholic church - that they did not realise it was damaging the poor victims.
In living memory, the mention of rape in the House of Commons would be greeted by sniggers and catcalls. It was not right then and it is not right now.
Should we forgive the Nazis because anti-semitism was rife in the 1930's? There are some basic human rights which should never be violated and the right not to be sexually abused is one of them.

Agreed, FlicketyB, which is why I, and others who have posted their experiences on this thread, kept it to ourselves rather than 'make a fuss'. I can't believe, thinking back now, how it was just accepted then that some men just behaved like that.

I think that the important thing is what the outcomes of these investigations might be. Clearly JS cannot be prosecuted, so the only two useful things that might emerge are - some support for these women who have come forward, and highlighting the need for organisations like the BEEB to recognise the power that celebreties wield and the potential for this to be used in negative ways.

Or will a lot of lawyers just make a lot of money.....?

I did read a comment from his nephew saying that this could bring about the end of the ongoing work done by Saviles' charities, which made me understand more about the threat at the time of removal of funds from Stoke Mandeville etc if allegations were made.

flickety

I am stunned.
" We cannot judge peoples actions 25 or 30 years ago ."
Excuse me? What are you saying??

And, Ana's post confirms, albeit inadvertently I think ,to the ignorance of your post.

30 years ago my children were in their early teens. If any of them had reported any "fiddling" to me I would have been round to the police station in a flash, and Mr E would have been round to their house to ask what the * So would my parents if they had heard any such thing from me, and my grandparents would not have ignored it for their children.

We might not have been so quick with suspicions as the parents of today, who hear so much in the news, but we knew that it happened and would have acted.

I agree with elegran. Dismissive attitudes ("oh, it doesn't matter") are wrong now and they were wrong thirty years ago. The difference is that now people can speak out and be listened to, and be believed. My father would have done everything in his power to pursue anyone to court who had abused me. I remember telling him years later about a flasher at a bus-stop when I was only twelve years old. He said that I should have told him at the time because the man could possibly have been apprehended and prevented from 'bothering' other young girls at bus-stops.

Something as wrong as child abuse has always been wrong, and it has always been as wrong as it is now. It is worth investigating alleged crimes from twenty or twenty-five years ago, if only to put in place measures to prevent such things happening again in similar situations. We can and should learn from past mistakes.

As for the threat of the charity work being stopped if the alleged crimes are investigated, well that's just a threat and a nasty one at that.

I agree with FlicketyB that attitudes were different thirty years ago (before everybody jumps on me I'm not saying the attitudes were right just that they were there).

It might explain something which puzzled me about the recent Expose film which is that JS didn't make any effort to hide what he was doing. He even made remarks about young teenage girls on air.

I didn't like the program, by the way, I thought it was salacious and cheap in it's approach and I hated the demeanor of the interviewer.

I wouldn't normally watch a prog which sets out to expose people every week.

Some people and organisations need exposing - like ATOS and Group 4, and all the politicians, both local and national, who have their nose in the trough.

Hard-hitting article here. Rightly so, too. Sock it to 'em PaperTiger.

I'm all for investigative journalism if it's done properly. I just don't like scandal type programs.

I agree with Greatnan and others who have said that even though the zeitgeist was different at the time, this behaviour was wrong, and it was known to be wrong. The Children Act of 1989 pulled together best practice and took extensive evidence and was game changing in terms of people's perceptions of the rights of the child. But that doesn't alter the fact that that was all it did. It wasn't a reversal of previous law and it didn't make previously right actions into wrong ones. And - it's now 23 years old. So, no excuse for anyone who colluded into cover ups.