Giving Victims a Voice - The Savile Report #childabuse

Savile report: Key points on TV presenter's offending

The Metropolitan Police and NSPCC have published a joint report, Giving Victims a Voice, on Jimmy Savile's sexual offending. Here are the key points:

Timescale

The earliest recorded Savile offence was in 1955 with the most recent in 2009.
His offending was most frequent during the period 1966-1976 when he was between 40 and 50 years old.
Reports of offences at the BBC spanned more than 40 years, from 1965-2006.

Victims

Savile's youngest victim was an eight-year-old boy. The oldest was 47. Most were aged 13-16.
The report said 73% of his victims were under 18 and 82% were female.
Offences were mainly opportunistic sexual assaults, but there are others where an element of grooming or planning was said to have occurred.
Victims recorded crimes including 126 indecent acts and 34 rape or penetration offences.

Locations

There are 50 allegations of offences at 13 hospitals, mental care establishments and a hospice. They include Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London.
He also abused his victims at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary. He worked at both places as a porter.
One offence was recorded at Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds in 1977.
Television or radio studios were identified in 33 allegations and 14 related to schools.
Allegations of sexual abuse at BBC premises include at the final recording of Top of the Pops in July 2006.
Most offences occurred in Leeds and London - Savile's home town and his main work location.
Some 214 criminal offences have been formally recorded across 28 police forces.

Reports to police

In the 1980s a woman is understood to have reported an allegation Savile assaulted her in his caravan on BBC premises. No police file has been found.
In 2003 a woman reported she was a victim of Savile during a recording of Top of the Pops in 1973. She did not want to support a prosecution and the case was left on file.
Between 2007 and 2009, Surrey Police investigated two cases of alleged sexual abuse at Duncroft School in Surrey and at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire. Police investigated, but no prosecution was taken forward. Today the Crown Prosecution Service said prosecutions might have been possible.
Sussex Police received a report in 2008 from a woman claiming she was assaulted by Jimmy Savile in 1970 in his caravan. She was reluctant to support a prosecution.
The States of Jersey Police considered Jimmy Savile as part of their 2008 investigation into child abuse at Haut de la Garenne children's home. No evidence was found to proceed.

Savile the sex offender

The Giving Victims a Voice report says: "It is now clear that Savile was hiding in plain sight and using his celebrity status and fund-raising activity to gain uncontrolled access to vulnerable people across six decades.
"Jimmy Savile was one of the UK's most prolific known sexual predators. Indeed the formal recording of allegations of crime on this scale is, to the best of our knowledge, unprecedented in the UK.
"The details provided by the victims of his abuse paint the picture of a mainly opportunistic individual who used his celebrity status as a powerful tool to coerce or control them, preying on the vulnerable or star-struck for his sexual gratification."

Courtesy of the BBC News website.