Why Jimmy Savile is important.

The pub discussion the other night was about the Jimmy Savile revelations. The majority sympathised with Jim.

 

‘ He’s dead’. ‘Why don’t they let him rest in peace?’ ‘Why drag this up after all these years?’ ‘He can’t answer for himself’. ‘What’s the point of all this?

 

I’ll tell you the point.

 

It is not about him and his sexual misdemeanours.

 

It is about a massive criminal conspiracy to conceal the serial sexual crimes of a celebrity.

 

This was all triggered by a BBC Newsnight investigation which the BBC suppressed.

 

At the time there was speculation that the BBC was embarrassed because it had only just broadcast a fulsome tribute to their late star.

 

But we now know that the true reason was much more serious.

 

Jim’s sexual predations were an open secret amongst the glitterati of the entertainment world and Fleet St for 40 years. Ester Rantzen, who has a child-welfare charity ChildLine, suspected it. Paul Gambaccini, who was with Jim on Radio 1, knew of it 30 years ago

 

It is alleged, according to the DT,  that ‘Jim abused and raped underage girls on BBC premises, in his  Rolls-Royce and in a caravan after he had made a “celebrity visit” to a girl’s school in Surrey’, but that ‘the circle of those guilty of collusion by silence or inaction is potentially much wider’.  His peccadilloes were well-known in the BBC and in entertainment circles.

 

So why did nobody blow the whistle?

 

The received wisdom is that he was just too big a star. With his charity work and marathon-running he was a national icon. He made himself untouchable.

 

He nearly came unstuck when was interviewed under caution in 2007 police investigating abuse of young girls at an Approved School in Staines, but once again it was Teflon Jim.

 

So will the CPS now bring conspiracy charges?

 

Don’t hold your breath!