The report by Dame Janet Smith, a judge, also found that 85-year-old sports broadcaster Stuart Hall, jailed in 2013 for sexual offences, abused 21 girls and women between 1967 to 1986 while at the BBC.
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The report was being made public as we went to press, but was expected to be very critical of the BBC and its culture during Savile’s tenure, and to also raise concerns about current management practices at the organisation, where, Smith was expected to say, staff are still wary to complain to and about those higher up the hierarchy.
“The BBC failed you when it should have protected you”, said BBC Director General Tony Hall.
The man who had been in Savile’s dressing room with her had instructed the same firm and one testimony supported the other, with Dame Janet Smith saying “I accept their accounts as true”. “They must be condemned for their monstrous behavior”.
Rapes, indecent assaults on both boys and girls, and incidents of “inappropriate sexual conduct” with teenagers over the age of 16 were all “in some way associated with the BBC”, the draft report stated, adding that three of Savile’s victims were only nine.
The BBC has come under fire after a new report has claimed that the corporation failed to intervene in Jimmy Savile’s repeated sexual abuse of minors because of a “culture of fear”.
Hall was found to have sexually assaulted girls as young as 10.
However, the review by a former court of appeal judge, Dame Janet Smith, cleared the institution of responsibility.
Top of the Pops put young girls at risk and was effectively a “picking-up” opportunity for predators like Jimmy Savile, a report into the culture of the BBC has found.
The 73-year-old said he had been shown the door because his evidence to Smith showed that a cover-up, of which he had no knowledge, had taken place.
Lord Hall said that, while he made no judgment on any claims about past behaviour, he must take “extremely seriously” Dame Janet Smith’s rejection of Blackburn’s evidence.
“A serial rapist and a predatory sexual abuser both hid in plain sight at the BBC for decades”.
Savile sexually assaulted one girl of only eight, and one boy who was nine.
But Dame Janet said her report made for “sorry reading” as she criticised a culture of “virtually untouchable” celebrities, and staff fearful of speaking out.
She added: “There was a feeling of reverence for them and a fear that, if a star were crossed, he or she might leave the BBC”. But Savile said there was no truth in the rumours and was believed.
Rona Fairhead, chairman of governing body the BBC Trust, said the events were a source of deep regret and shame.
But Lord Hall said the corporation had “parted company” with Blackburn, referred to as A7 in the report, because of his evidence to the inquiry.
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NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless said: “This report demonstrates just how disturbingly easy at the time it was for Savile to get away, unchallenged, with despicable acts against children at the BBC”.
