(Warning: Strong languages and sexual references ahead)
There are plenty of stories of celebrity being ousted as sexual predators during the height of their fame, and many more are uncovered during their rise to fame. But never in recent history, that someone that was loved and praised by a country would wound up as the most prolific sexual predator ever existed after his death. When it comes to this man, between his active years as a radio disc jockey and television personality all the way to years after his death, people's perception changed from being starstrucked to outright mockery. Beware. What I am about to uncover is so demented, you wouldn't touch your meals after this.
For people outside the UK and Ireland, the name Jimmy Savile is perhaps quite foreign, but for the British, he once was a celebrated personality due to his philanthropism and charity work, even earning himself the Order of the British Empire. The man was born as James Wilson Vincent Saville, born on the 31st of October 1926 in Leeds, England. He was the youngest of seven and grew up during the Great Depression. He later claimed, "I was forged in the crucible of want” and described his father as "scrupulously honest but scrupulously broke." He went to St Anne's Roman Catholic School in Leeds and started working in an office at 14 years of age after leaving school. During the second world war, he was conscripted to work in a coal mine, where he suffered spinal injuries from shot-firer's explosion. After his stint at the mines, and further extensive treatments, he became a scrap metal dealer. His first taste of music came in 1940, where he started playing records in dance halls, and claimed to be the first disc jockey (DJ). In his autobiography, he claimed to be the first person to use twin turntables and a microphone at the Grand Records Ball at Guardbridge Hotel in 1947, although this claim is disputed.
Before the fame from all those radio and television shows, Savile was a semi-professional sportsman, most notably having competed in the 1951 Tour of Britain cycling race and worked as a professional wrestler. His first radio gig was in 1958 by joining Radio Luxembourg as a DJ, presenting six programs a week. By 1968, he joined BBC Radio 1, where he presented various programs such as Savile's Travels, Speakeasy, and an old chart show Jimmy Savile's Old Record Club. His got his first television job in the midst of his stint at Radio Luxembourg in 1960, where he presented Tyne Tees' Television music program Young at Heart. He was the first host of the BBC's favorite music chart show Top of the Pops when it first aired on New Year’s Day of 1964 and co-hosted the final edition on 30 July 2006. Of all his TV shows, the most notable one is probably Jim'll Fix It. This particular program works by letting Savile to respond to letters send by kids to help them grant their wishes, or as he would say "fix it".
He was also active during charitable events. Since he was a survivor of spinal cord injuries, one of his targets was Stoke Mandeville Hospital, where he invested in the Spinal Unit, NSIC (National Spinal Injuries Centre), and St Francis Ward – a ward for children and teens with spinal cord injuries. Savile also volunteered at Leeds General Infirmary and Broadmoor Hospital. From 1974 to 1988, Savile was the honorary president of PHAB (Physically Handicapped in the Able-Bodied community). He sponsored medical students performing undergraduate research in the Leeds University Research Enterprise scholarship scheme, donating more than £60,000 every year. In 2010, the scheme was given a commitment of £500,000 over the following five years. Aside from all the causes above, Savile also set up two charities, the Jimmy Savile Stoke Mandeville Hospital Trust in 1981, and the Leeds-based Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust in 1984.
And from all of his work either from radio, television, or charity, he became one of the most beloved figures in British history. During his lifetime and at the time of his death, Savile was regarded as "an eccentric adornment to British public life ... a ubiquitous and distinctive face on television", who "relished being in the public eye" and was "a shrewd promoter of his own image". He created a "bizarre yodel", and catchphrases which included "How's about that, then?", "Now then, now then", "Goodness gracious", "As it 'appens" and "Guys and gals". Savile was frequently spoofed for his dress sense, which usually featured a tracksuit or shellsuit and gold jewelry. A range of licensed fancy dress costumes was released with his consent in 2009. Savile was often pictured holding a cigar. He claimed to have started smoking cigars at the age of seven, saying "My dad gave me a drag on one at Christmas, thinking it would put me off them forever, but it had the opposite effect."
Savile was a member of Mensa and the Institute of Advanced Motorists and drove a Rolls-Royce. He was made a life member of the British Gypsy Council in 1975, becoming the first "outsider" to be made a member. In 1984, Savile was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum, a gentlemen's club in London's Pall Mall, after being proposed by Cardinal Basil Hume. He was chieftain of the Lochaber Highland Games for many years, and owned a house in Glen Coe. And he also grew close to many political figures through his charity work, some of them included members of the royal family. One name that stood out however, was then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The woman known as "The Iron Lady" praised Savile's work as "marvellous". He also met several members of the royal family, such as Prince Charles, Prince Phillip, Princess Diana, and many others. Despite his relationship with the public, Savile was never married, and stayed with his mother until her death.
Sadly, the man known for his unusual antics and his lovable personality must meet the bitter end. On 29 October 2011, just two days shy of his 85th birthday, he was found dead in his apartment in Leeds, and the funeral service was held on 9 November 2011, at Leeds Cathedral, and finally rested at Woodlands Cemetery in Scarborough. But one year later, the floodgates would open, revealing the darkest secret a man has ever kept during his lifetime. During Savile's lifetime, sporadic allegations of child abuse were made against him dating back to 1963, but these only became widely publicized after his death. Savile claimed the key to his success on Jim'll Fix It had been that he disliked children, although he later admitted to saying this to deflect scrutiny of his personal life. He did not own a computer, claiming that he did not want anybody to think he was downloading child pornography. His autobiography entitled, As it Happens (1974, reprinted as Love is an Uphill Thing, 1976) contains admissions of improper sexual conduct which appear to have passed unnoticed during his lifetime. One celebrity, being former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon once alluded that Jimmy Savile was in fact a sexual predator targeting kids, saying that he'd "like to kill Jimmy Savile" and he "knew some rumors" but was edited out by the BBC. When the allegations broke out, Lydon doubled down on his earlier quote, even expanding it into "By killed I meant locking him up and stopping him assaulting young children... I'm disgusted at the media pretending they weren't aware."
More floodgates opened after his death. many investigations are launched to examine the possibility that the once beloved DJ and television personality committed heinous acts on children. Immediately after Savile's death, Meirion Jones and Liz Mackean from the BBC program Newsnight began to investigate reports that he had sexually abused children. They interviewed one alleged victim on camera and talked to a number of others who were willing to be quoted about alleged abuse at Duncroft Approved School, the BBC, and Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The former headmistress of Duncroft was Jones' own aunt. The Newsnight team, which included former police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, also found out about a 2009 Surrey Police investigation into Savile. The report was scheduled for broadcast on 7 December 2011, but a decision was taken to cancel its transmission, which ultimately developed into a major crisis for the BBC when the allegations against Savile were made public in October 2012. The subsequent Pollard Review found that Jones and MacKean had assembled cogent evidence that Savile had a history of abusing young women and Newsnight had been in a position to break the story in 2011. In November 2021, Mark Williams-Thomas spoke to GB News calling the BBC's treatment of the allegations "absolutely appalling".
In January 2012 the Sunday Mirror reported that Newsnight had investigated allegations of sexual abuse immediately after Savile's death but that the report had been shelved. An article by Miles Goslett in the March 2012 edition of The Oldie alleged a cover-up. The BBC showed two Savile tributes over the 2011 Christmas period, and it was alleged that the Newsnight report had been dropped because its content would have compromised the showing of the tributes. A joint submission to the Leveson Inquiry from Anna van Heeswijk (Object), Jacqui Hunt (Equality Now), Heather Harvey (Eaves) and Marai Larasi (End Violence against Women) was titled "Just the Women", a phrase which was reportedly written by Newsnight editor Peter Rippon in an email to a colleague concerning the lack of other authorities [than the alleged female victims] for evidence of Savile's abuse. A Newsnight spokesman said, "Any suggestion that a story was dropped for anything other than editorial reasons is completely untrue."
In October 2013 the transcript of Surrey Police's interview with Savile in 2009 was published after a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Savile denied the sexual abuse allegations relating to Duncroft Approved School put to him by the police, saying, "I've never, ever done anything wrong" and stating that the accusers wanted a "few quid".
Other investigations soon followed and was made public on different occasion. One report concluded that Savile sexually assaulted victims in NHS hospitals over several decades. At Leeds General Infirmary, 60 people, including both staff and patients, stated that they had been abused by Savile, their ages ranging from 5 to 75. It reported on a number of organizational failures which had allowed him to continue unchallenged. One report even detailed Savile's boasting to nurses and other staff that he performed sex acts on the bodies of recently deceased persons in the mortuary of Leeds General Hospital and claimed to have removed glass eyes from corpses and made them into rings. A separate report on Savile's activities at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, prepared by independent investigator Dr. Androulla Johnstone and published on 26 February 2015, found that he had sexually abused more than 50 people there, including staff, patients, and visitors. One was an 8-year-old child. Savile had full access to all parts of the hospital. The report stated that it was widely known at the hospital that Savile was a "sex pest", and that 10 complaints had been made at the time, but no action was taken. In total, combining all the reports and findings, Jimmy Savile has sexually harassed an estimated total of more than 450 victims throughout his lifetime. Let that sink in.
To be honest, I am lost for words when I uncover so many heinous facts and all those confessions, even when writing this piece while watching the Netflix documentary Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, I need to hold myself from throwing up, as this is as demented as someone can be. And I thought that Chris Chan doing a fling with his dementia-ridden mother was the worst of it all. I just found out that Jimmy Savile was in fact, the most sick, twisted, and demented human being ever lived. Previously I wished you R.I.P, but now, rot in Hell you pedophile bastard.
