Disgraced entertainer Jimmy Savile sexually assaulted a teenager live on Top Of The Pops, right under the noses of his BBC bosses.
Sylvia Edwards, who had just recently turned 18, was a member of the Top Of The Pops audience during a 1986 episode of the hit music show. The programme was made at the now-defunct BBC Television Centre in West London.
The image above shows the moment Savile, who committed dozens of sex crimes during his time at the BBC, reached into the skirt of the clearly embarrassed teenager. She yelps and shuffles with discomfort, before the perverted entertainer reached back for another grope.
In the moments after this incident Sylvia went to report Savile's assault to a headset-wearing man standing behind a camera. To her astonishment her concerns were callously dismissed as "just what Jimmy Savile does".
Reliving her experience in a Sky News interview, she said: "I felt his (Savile's) hand go underneath and I jumped up, but when I went to sit back down again - because I couldn't go anywhere - his hand was still there. I was trying to push it away, but he wouldn't move it...
"I found this man next to a camera and I said 'he's really filthy, he's put his hand up my skirt' and he said 'oh, no - don't be so stupid - that's just Jimmy Savile'."
It is now more than three years since then Director General George Entwistle asked former High Court Judge Dame Janet Smith to conduct a thorough and impartial review into a catalogue of sex crimes behind the doors of the BBC.
After several questionable delays Dame Janet's report is now completed and stored under lock and key. The BBC, for reasons we can only speculate, refuses to allow the final document into the public spotlight, despite the public knowing fine well the highly critical findings - that senior BBC managers of the time had grave concerns about Savile, but turned a blind eye.
The final report has been cleverly written to negate Metropolitan Police concerns that it may prejudice ongoing criminal investigations. Many journalists are now of the opinion that the BBC is deliberately stalling the publication of the report's damning conclusions until after it has agreed the terms of its next Royal Charter.
In a desperate act of self-preservation the BBC would rather keep the report hush hush than face a collapse in public and Parliamentary support, and confidence, when the truth is finally revealed.
Enough deceit and prevarication: It's now time for the BBC to come clean over the Dame Janet Smith Review findings. If the BBC doesn't publish the report voluntarily then the Government needs to step in and order it to do so.
The clock is ticking.
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2 comments:
Maybe they're waiting for as many of the perpetrators as possible to drop dead from old age before releasing the findings. After all, you can't question a dead man (or woman).
The thought had crossed my mind too.
According to the joint Met Police/NSPCC report, "Giving Victims a Voice", the last BBC allegation against Savile was in 2006.
It is entirely plausible that BBC bosses in post (and turning a blind eye) then are still at the BBC now. Entirely possible.
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