Almost three-and-a-half years after it was commissioned, Dame Janet Smith’s inquiry into the BBC culture and practices that enabled Jimmy Savile to carry on decades of sexual abuse while in the broadcaster’s employ was published today.
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“No senior manager ever found out about any specific complaint relating to Savile’s inappropriate sexual conduct in connection with his work for the BBC”, Smith concludes in the report.
Trust chairman Rona Fairhead said that the BBC had “failed” the victims.
Smith’s report states: “He would take her to different rooms where she would meet a man and he would tell her to “sit on Uncle so and so’s knee” or he would say that he had to go and do something and “Uncle so and so” would look after her. They must be condemned for their monstrous behavior”.
But Liz Dux, a specialist abuse lawyer who represents 168 of Savile’s victims, said the report was “disappointing”, and many victims would feel it was “nothing more than an expensive whitewash”.
Jimmy Savile was once a beloved BBC entertainer – until a police investigation uncovered a decades-long string of sexual assaults, some of which were committed against children. He similarly disagrees with BBC records that say he was also interviewed by Brian Neill QC as part of a payola investigation at the Beeb.
He said the draft report was “clear” at least 107 people within the BBC had “some knowledge or inkling” of Savile’s activities.
Tony Blackburn was sacked because he “fell short” of the standards expected of someone providing evidence to a BBC inquiry, director-general Lord Hall has said.
“The BBC have made clear that they are not terminating my relationship with them because of any misconduct”, Blackburn said.
Savile sexually assaulted two teenage girls in front of the cameras in the Top Of The Pops studio on separate occasions in the 1960s and 1970s.
The BBC has been given six months to respond setting out procedures in areas criticised in the report.
Smith’s report is viewed as the most comprehensive study of the historical atmosphere at the BBC that enabled such behavior.
I am told that the decision was taken, personally, by the Director General. “It follows that I have found no evidence that the BBC as a corporate body was aware of Savile’s conduct”.
He said he had been “left with no choice” but to take legal action against the BBC.
Dame Janet said that “most” of the incidents of “rape and attempted rape” that she investigated in relation to Savile took place on BBC premises.
While there were widespread rumors and a number of prominent producers were privy to reports and evidence of abuse, they didn’t report anything to their higher-ups, Smith wrote in her 1,220-page report.
She added that BBC staff were “more anxious about reputation than the safety of children”.
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The report came as veteran DJ Tony Blackburn accused the BBC of making him a “scapegoat” after sacking him on the eve of its publication.
