Jimmy Savile

Jimmy Savile was a BBC disc jockey and television personality who worked for the corporation from 1965 to 2006 and died in October 2011. A year later, the day after ITV broadcast a program in which five women said he had abused them in the 1970s, the Metropolitan Police opened Operation Yewtree; its report of January 2013 recorded 214 crimes across 28 police areas between 1955 and 2009, 73 percent against children, the victims aged from 8 to 47, and concluded that he had been "hiding in plain sight."⁹ The review by Dame Janet Smith for the BBC identified 72 victims dating to 1959 and found that 117 people at the corporation had heard rumors about him.¹⁰

Savile was a volunteer porter at Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville, helped with hospital radio at Leeds and supervised entertainments at Broadmoor. He was "an accepted presence at Leeds General Infirmary for over 50 years," with access to wards and clinical areas by day and night. In 1981, at the instigation of a government minister, he was put in charge of the 10-million-pound fundraising campaign for Stoke Mandeville's National Spinal Injuries Centre and given effective control of its building project, completed in 1983. Investigations by 28 NHS organizations were published in June 2014 and sixteen more in February 2015, with the oversight report of Kate Lampard for the Secretary of State for Health.¹¹

After his death, allegations of sexual abuse surfaced, with "first a few, then many, and finally too many to ignore." Operation Yewtree was described as being in practice an investigation of the BBC and of associates of Savile who could still be prosecuted.¹

Savile's personal chauffeur, David Smith, was a convicted pedophile with 22 prior convictions who worked for the BBC transporting guests to and from the studios during the 1980s. Smith was the first person to face charges under Operation Yewtree and was found dead at his flat in Lewisham, south east London, on Monday, the day before he was due to go on trial accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy in 1984. According to victim testimony, Smith got victims BBC passes and introduced them to scores of stars, including fellow pedophile Jimmy Savile, taking them to sets of Saturday Superstore and Top of the Pops.²

BBC Pedophile Network Connections

Savile was connected to multiple BBC figures involved in child abuse, including Chris Denning, who was "good friends with Jimmy Savile" and according to Czech police was "head of an international pedophile network and running a child porn operation from his Prague apartment." Denning had been arrested in November 1997 based on information Czech police received from Scotland Yard after Warwick Spinks went into exile there. The investigation into Denning served as the genesis to ongoing probes into a suspected child abuse ring linked to the BBC that eventually culminated in Operation Yewtree.³

Jonathan King was another BBC personality connected to Savile, with one suspect in the Operation Arundel investigation who was never arrested or charged having been "a good friend and colleague of both Denning and King, BBC Radio One DJ Jimmy Savile." The investigation into King and Denning in the early 2000s led to Operation Arundel, which investigated a suspected pedophile ring of BBC celebrities in the 70s and 80s who allegedly procured boys and girls from an underage nightclub called the Walton Hop Disco.⁴

Organized Abuse Network and Cover-up

Multiple victims alleged that Savile was part of an organized pedophile ring operating at the BBC, with new victims going to police with complaints about a "very organised" paedophile ring. The allegations related to the DJ and several of his associates working at the corporation about 40 years ago, with victims saying they were abused by the entertainer as well as other BBC staff who were not famous TV faces. Gary Glitter was arrested in October 2012 and convicted of historic CSA related to Operation Yewtree charges, while Chris Denning was arrested in June 2013 and convicted of historic CSA against 24 boys, one of whom Denning allegedly raped at Jimmy Savile's house⁵.

Savile had connections to a private chauffeur company that employed multiple convicted pedophiles, including Sidney Cooke, whose gang the "Dirty Dozen" would later be convicted and jailed for the torture and murder of three young boys in the 80s. In October 2015, a victim of Jimmy Savile named Georgina Martin stated she was frequently driven to his home by up to five different drivers, one of whom she said she was "pimped out" to, with these five drivers being men other than David Smith⁶.

Connections and Criminal Associates

Savile's connections extended to serious criminal activities, including associations with the Yorkshire Ripper case. He once held up a drawing of himself at a public event and laughed, "It's a photofit for the Yorkshire Ripper," then quipped to a little girl in the crowd, "I kidnap girls like you." Savile actually befriended the actual Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, who murdered his third victim Irene Richardson in the park right behind Savile's penthouse. In 1980, police took moulds of Savile's teeth to compare with bite marks found on the victim's breasts⁷.

The BBC archives contained numerous instances of stars jokingly alluding to their activities, "almost as if tacitly gaining the public's consent to do it through a confession disguised as a joke." Savile's jokes got particularly dark, and the BBC faced questions over how it came to employ convicted pedophiles and cover up knowledge of extensive abuse within the corporation. The investigation into Savile and his associates revealed systemic failures within the BBC to protect children from predatory employees and high-profile personalities⁸.