Deep Politics Forum

Quote:Revealed: Lady Thatcher's FIVE attempts to secure knighthood for Jimmy Savile while her aides warned of his strange and complex' life

Tory PM first asked he be made 'Sir' Jimmy in 1984, secret documents show
Civil servants warned her off because of his boasts about his 'lurid' sex life
He was finally knighted in 1990, Lady Thatcher's final year in office

By Martin Robinson

PUBLISHED: 09:57, 17 July 2013 | UPDATED: 12:47, 17 July 2013


Margaret Thatcher made five attempts to get Jimmy Savile knighted while she was prime minister despite aides warning of 'continued misgivings' about his 'strange and complex' private life.

The Iron Lady took six years to get the paedophile star made 'Sir' because civil servants persistently blocked her requests, secret Cabinet Office papers revealed today.

Documents from during Lady Thatcher's time in Downing Street show her advisers had 'worries' about Savile being knighted because of 'unfortunate revelations' about his private life.

Persistent: Margaret Thatcher with Jimmy Saville outside No 10 Downing Street in 1988, as it was revealed she tried five times to get him knighted while prime minister

Savile had boasted about having sex with women he approached at charity events and also how he was violent.


Shamed DJ: Cigar-smoking Jimmy Savile pictured after receiving his knighthood at the Palace in 1990

The new paperwork shows the Tory leader first asked that Savile be knighted in 1984, but mandarins said they were concerned after he spoke to the press about his 'lurid' sex life.

After another attempt was sidelined her private secretary Nigel Wicks wrote to head of the civil service Robert Armstrong to say the prime minister was 'most disappointed', adding: 'She wonders how many more times his name is to be pushed aside. She would therefore like you to consider further the inclusion of his name on the (honours) list'.

Armstrong had earlier warned Wicks that 'the case of Jimmy Savile is complex', because 'he has made no attempt to deny the accounts in the press about his private life'.

After Thatcher recommended him again documents show that it was rejected because of his promiscuity, after aides said that as the government tried to deal with the spread of Aids in the 1980s, honouring him would send out the wrong message.

Another adviser's letter to the PM, published in The Sun today, stated: 'Mr Savile is a strange and complex man.'

It adds: 'Fears have been expressed that Mr Savile might not be able to refrain from exploiting a knighthood in a way which brought the honours system into disrepute.'

Warnings: Lady Thatcher's aides were critical of Jimmy Savile's private life, but the Tory leader insisted his charity work meant he should become 'sir'

Another note, from Mrs Thatcher's then private secretary, repeated the concerns. It added: 'We have again considered the name of Mr Jimmy Savile, whom you have of course considered on previous occasions. We have again concluded that he should not be recommended.'

'She (Lady Thatcher) wonders how many more times his name is to be pushed aside. She would therefore like you to consider further the inclusion of his name on the (honours) list'

- Lady Thatcher's private secretary in letter to head of the civil service

Overall Lady Thatcher was talked out of getting him knighted four times.

The television star was finally knighted for his services to charity in 1990, Lady Thatcher's final year in power.

Letters released last year shows there was a warm relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Savile.

The Top Of The Pops presenter sent an adoring letter to the then prime minister in 1980, singing her praises and declaring his love for her.

Correspondence: A handwritten letter from Jimmy Savile in which he declared his 'love' for Margaret Thatcher after being invited to lunch with her was released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule

She responded by inviting the now-disgraced DJ to lunch at Chequers, spending 11 consecutive New Year's Eves with him and finally overseeing his knighthood.

JIMMY SAVILE'S KNIGHTHOOD CAN'T BE REVOKED BECAUSE HE'S DEAD

A constitutional bar preventing the dead from having their knighthoods removed means the government cannot strip Savile of the accolade

Those given a knighthood are awarded lifetime membership to a living order' and the title no longer exists when the holder dies.

The TV host, who died aged 84, was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 1990 - an award which followed the OBE he was given in 1971.

Whitehall sources admitted they considered awarding him a posthumous knighthood so he could then be stripped of it.

The Queen has the power to remove honours after they have been recommended by the forfeiture committee.

Last year Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, was stripped of his knighthood.

Savile raised more than £30 million for good causes, including £12 million to rebuild the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.

He died in October 2011, but his grave crimes only came to light the following year.

A report by Scotland Yard and the NSPCC said he DJ spent every waking minute' thinking about abusing children and used his celebrity status to that end.

Eighteen girls and ten boys aged under ten were abused the youngest being a boy of eight targeted at his school.

Allegations of sexual assault have been made by 450 individuals, aged up to 47, and some have yet to be interviewed.

The 214 confirmed offences included 34 rapes and stretch across 28 police force areas. The most recent was in 2009 but they date back as far as 1955.

Of his victims, 73 per cent were children, with youngsters aged as young as eight when they were targeted.

Yesterday the BBC, whose premises were used by Savile for abuse, admitted its soul-searching about why it failed to expose the scandal has so far cost the licence fee payer almost £5million.

The bill for three internal reviews launched after BBC2's Newsnight failed to broadcast allegations of abuse against the DJ and TV presenter includes huge legal fees for senior staff and for consultants employed to black out chunks of a damning report.

The bill currently stands at £4.9 million not including tax and VAT, which is equivalent to the cost of 33,677 licence fees.

The corporation's annual report also revealed pay for senior managers soared by 60 per cent to £4.1million, swollen by controversial golden goodbyes' for bosses forced out over the handling of the Savile affair.

Former Canadian Deputy Minister of Education Involved In Int'l Paedophile Porn

Quote:Paedophiles will 'laugh at' web porn crackdown, says ex police chief
New rules: The Prime Minister said he wants Britain to be the best place to raise a family

Evening Standard

Joe Murphy, Political Editor

Published: 22 July 2013

Updated: 10:47, 22 July 2013

Child abusers will "laugh at" some of David Cameron's new measures to counter extreme pornography, one of Britain's top anti-paedophile investigators said today.

Former police chief Jim Gamble predicted that plans to confront people with a pop-up warning if they appeared to be putting phrases like "child porn" into a search engine would fail to stop abusers sharing images with each other online.

"Let's create a real deterrent, not a pop-up that paedophiles will laugh at," said the former deputy chief constable and chairman of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop).

"There are 50,000 predators we are told by Ceop downloading images from peer-to-peer, yet from Ceop intelligence only 192 were arrested last year," he warned. "That's simply not good enough."

The criticism by Mr Gamble, who built up Ceop into a world famous centre for tracking down paedophile networks, took some of the shine off Mr Cameron's announcements made in a speech at a children's charity in central London.

Internet search engines claim a "pop-up" will not affect the results of searches but could deter people from legitimate searches.

Google says it already blocks child abuse images. A person entering the term "child porn" would be shown newspaper articles about the Prime Minister's announcement, for example, but not illegal images. Internet providers say legitimate inquiries could be suppressed.

The new measures include:

* Every Internet customer will be required to choose "yes" or "no" by the end of 2014 to having filters against pornography installed on their home service. New customers will have "yes" ticked by default.

* Possessing violent pornography containing simulated rape will be made a crime in England and Wales.

* Videos streamed online in the UK will be subject to the same restrictions as those sold in shops.

* Ceop investigators will get new powers to investigate the so-called dark Internet which operates outside the reach of search engines.

The Prime Minister admitted that stopping peer-to-peer sharing by abusers was "very tough". But he insisted that extra police powers should make paedophiles nervous. "People should know there is no hidden place on the Internet where they cannot be caught," he told Woman's Hour.

But challenged whether Page Three-style images of topless women should be banned from newspapers, he refused, saying: "It's an issue of personal choice whether people buy a newspaper or not."

His measures were welcomed by women's groups. Fiona Elvines, of Rape Crisis South London, said: "The Government today has made a significant step forward in preventing rapists using rape pornography to legitimise and strategise their crimes and, more broadly, in challenging the eroticisation of violence against women and girls."

Professor Clare McGlynn, of Durham University, said: "The extreme porn law can be swiftly amended to send a clear message that rape should not be a form of sexual entertainment."

A Google spokesman said: "We have a zero tolerance attitude to child sexual abuse imagery."

Quote:Benedictine order plans inquiry into Scotland schools child abuse scandal

Senior figures plan own investigation into allegations that monks abused boys at Fort Augustus and Carlekemp Priory schools

Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
theguardian.com, Tuesday 30 July 2013 13.03 BST

Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands of Scotland. Senior figures in the Benedictine religious order plan an internal inquiry into allegations of sexual and physical abuse by monks at the school. Photograph: Alamy

Senior figures in the Benedictine religious order are planning their own inquiry into harrowing allegations that monks sexually and physically abused dozens of boys at two schools in Scotland.

Police in Scotland have launched an investigation into disclosures by former pupils at Fort Augustus in the Highlands and Carlekemp Priory school near Edinburgh that monks subjected them to systematic violence and sexual assaults, including claims that one now deceased monk raped five boys.

Dom Richard Yeo, the head of the UK's largest Benedictine group of congregations, said he had already been contacted by detectives from Police Scotland over the allegations, detailed in a BBC Scotland documentary on Monday.

In May the Observer revealed that a police investigation had begun into Fort Augustus after one pupil, Andrew Lavery, accused monks there of "systematic, brutal, awful torture", which included being locked alone for days at a time in a room.

That included sexual assaults by monks, while other ex-pupils spoke of repeated bullying and sexually predatory behaviour.

Yeo said he was also liaising with senior figures in the Scottish Catholic safeguarding office, an agency of the church which oversees child protection policy within the church. Once the police inquiry was complete, he said, the Benedictines were likely to conduct their own investigation.

Yeo told the Guardian on Tuesday he was horrified by the allegations, adding: "I'm very sorry for any abuse that happened."

He confirmed that he had been aware of a few cases of alleged abuses at Fort Augustus made by some individuals over the past three years. "But the BBC are saying it's more than a few cases, that it's a significant number of cases, so that's new to me," he said, adding: "They're talking about a culture of abuse."

The BBC programme, Sins of the Fathers, alleged that nine monks at the schools repeatedly beat, sexually assaulted and, in one case, raped boys in their care over several decades. Victims of the abuse complained but their testimony was ignored. One priest allegedly involved, now living in Sydney, Australia, has been suspended by the Australian church after the BBC tracked him down.

Yeo, who is abbot president of the English Congregation of Benedictines, to which the two schools were affiliated and which includes famous schools such as Ampleforth in Yorkshire and Buckfast Abbey in Devon, said he was still mulling over what form its inquiry might take. The Police Scotland investigation must take priority, he said.

The schools are now closed: Carlekemp Priory school stopped operating in the 1970s, while Fort Augustus closed in the 1990s. They were also independent and effectively autonomous, run by the monks and abbot in charge, so his order had no direct control over its affairs then.

"Because the place is shut down, and so many people [involved] are dead, it's going to be difficult, I imagine, to find out exactly what happened. I was told by the BBC that the people who were abused said that they would like some sort of an inquiry. My reply to that is the correct thing to do is that I can't anticipate things before the police make their decisions [on what to do]," he said.

Yeo added that he was involved because as head of the Benedictines (there is a small separate Scottish order uninvolved in this scandal), there was no one else for complainants to turn to and the former school was an autonomous body. His predecessor did not control its affairs.

"I have been ready to talk to people who have come to speak to me, because there's really nobody else and I was happy to talk to the BBC because there was nobody else," he said. "I don't really know what to do. I'm certainly open to doing some sort of inquiry but I don't know what at this stage.

"I would say we have a collective concern [as Benedictines]; you can only exercise responsibility if you exercise some sort of control and we didn't exercise some sort of control over Fort Augustus; it was an independent monastery."

A spokesman for the Scottish Catholic church said he too was horrified by the allegations. But he insisted neither the former archbishop of Aberdeen, Mario Conti, who was in place during the latter years of the school's operation, nor the current bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Gilbert, had had any knowledge of the allegations.

He and other church sources said the Benedictines were entirely self-governing and were not under the control or oversight of the Scottish church. The spokesman said: "If they had known, it would have been handed immediately to the diocesian safeguarding team and to the police.

"We have only discovered through the media that these allegations have emerged and that Police Scotland are now dealing with this."

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Cameron has announced a "crackdown" on "web porn" today.

Here's an expert response from the former head of the UK's child abuse investigation unit, stressing that that most paedophiles do not share images of child abuse via google style searches but rather via peer to peer communication.

Peer to peer communication can be policed but it requires specialist teams of child abuse investigators with IT expertise and search warrants.

Oh yeah, and it costs money.

Quote:Paedophiles will 'laugh at' web porn crackdown, says ex police chief
New rules: The Prime Minister said he wants Britain to be the best place to raise a family
........

But challenged whether Page Three-style images of topless women should be banned from newspapers, he refused, saying: "It's an issue of personal choice whether people buy a newspaper or not."

Magda Hassan Wrote:

Jan Klimkowski Wrote:Cameron has announced a "crackdown" on "web porn" today.

Here's an expert response from the former head of the UK's child abuse investigation unit, stressing that that most paedophiles do not share images of child abuse via google style searches but rather via peer to peer communication.

Peer to peer communication can be policed but it requires specialist teams of child abuse investigators with IT expertise and search warrants.

Oh yeah, and it costs money.

Quote:Paedophiles will 'laugh at' web porn crackdown, says ex police chief
New rules: The Prime Minister said he wants Britain to be the best place to raise a family
........

But challenged whether Page Three-style images of topless women should be banned from newspapers, he refused, saying: "It's an issue of personal choice whether people buy a newspaper or not."

Rather than control the internet, an impossible and ridiculous task, it is better if free internet filters can be provided to those that request them. Much cheaper and leaves every one else in peace.

If Cameron wants Britain to be the best place to raise a family he needs to abolish the Tories, arrest his friends the bankers, abolish monetarism, fully fund the NHS and public education and stop using homes as casino chips and promoting landlordism. Internet pornography is the least of it. And he doesn't want to deal with pornography on paper just the internet? WTF? There is a choice in both as the consumer.

David Guyatt Wrote:But using filters would hinder the thin edge of the wedge strategy to control the internet per se. Cameron doesn't give a flying took about internet porn - if he did care about these things a former Conservative Home Secretary would be banged up by now....

Quote:Dozens injured in Morocco at protest over Spanish paedophile's release

Police baton-charge protesters after royal pardon and release of Daniel Galván Viña who served two years of 30-year term

Stephen Burgen
theguardian.com, Sunday 4 August 2013 15.06 BST

police clash demonstrators Rabat Morocco
Police clash with demonstrators outside the parliament in Rabat after the release of convicted Spanish paedophile Daniel Galván Viña. Photograph: Mustapha Houbais/AP

Dozens of people were injured at the weekend when police in Morocco baton-charged demonstrators protesting at the royal pardon granted to a Spanish paedophile. Daniel Galván Viña was released after serving barely two years of the 30-year sentence he received for sexually abusing 11 children aged from three to 14.

The royal palace said in a statement on Sunday that King Mohammed VI would never have signed the pardon had he been aware of the seriousness of Galván's crimes. Galván, 64, was the last name on a list of 48 Spanish prisoners submitted by Spain's King Juan Carlos for pardon. Most of the others had been jailed for drug trafficking. The Spanish royal palace publicly expressed the crown's "deep gratitude" when the prisoners were pardoned on 30 July.

According to the Moroccan digital newspaper Lakome, Galván was released at the express request of the CNI, Spain's national intelligence agency. The organisation allegedly extracted him from Iraq where he worked as a spy within the military under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Galván is an Iraqi from Basra and appears to have acquired his Spanish name from the secret service, along with a new identity as a retired professor of oceanography. He moved to Rabat eight years ago where he organised parties in his home for poor and vulnerable children whom he then abused and photographed.

According to Galván's lawyer, the pardon came as a complete surprise to his client but he lost no time in contacting the Spanish consulate in Morocco to expedite his departure. Lakome says his release may form part of a spy exchange between Madrid and Rabat.

The Moroccan justice ministry said in a statement that such pardons "are granted for interests of state within the framework of friendly diplomatic relations between countries".

Galván's trial and conviction in September 2011 attracted widespread media attention in Morocco. As well as the 30-year sentence, he was ordered to pay €4,800 (£4,170) to the families of eight of his victims.

While many of the 48 prisoners granted pardon have yet to be freed pending payment of fines, Galván was granted safe conduct to Spain's north African enclave of Ceuta without paying the families. The Spanish group Lawyers Without Frontiers is demanding that he complete his jail sentence is Spain.

Further demonstrations are expected this week.

Abdelali Hamieddine, a senior member of the ruling Islamist Justice and Development party, said "Moroccans have the right to demonstrate when they feel humiliated and the authorities don't have the right to react so violently."

Quote:5 August 2013 UK Channel 4 News

Rolf Harris re-arrested in Savile abuse inquiry

An 83-year-old man, understood to veteran entertainer Rolf Harris, is re-arrested on further allegations of sexual offences in connection with Operation Yewtree.

Rolf Harris arrested in connection with Operation Yewtree (Image: Reuters)

He was arrested in March by Scotland Yard detectives from Operation Yewtree, the national investigation sparked by abuse claims made against disgraced television presenter Jimmy Savile.

He returned on bail on Monday and was re-arrested on suspicion of sexual offences in connection with further allegations made to the police.

Mr Harris had previously been interviewed under caution on 29 November last year, five days after a search warrant was executed at his home. He has been re-bailed to a date later in August.

Mr Harris was only publicly named as a Yewtree suspect in April, when The Sun newspaper became the first media outlet to identify him in connection with the investigation.

The inquiry has been run in three strands - claims involving Savile, those involving Savile and others, and those involving others.

Mr Harris is being dealt with under the "others" strand, meaning the allegations have no link to shamed DJ Savile.
Family favourite

The Australian, who painted a portrait of the Queen in 2005 and performed at her Diamond Jubilee concert last year, has been a family favourite for decades.

He had his first musical hit, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, in 1960, and continued to enjoy success in the industry, gaining cult status in recent years and performing at Glastonbury festival several times.

He also proved popular as a television presenter, getting his first big break in 1967 when he began hosting his own BBC1 programme, The Rolf Harris Show, before moving on to children's television in the 1980s and then to Animal Hospital, which he hosted from 1994 to 2004.

Mr Harris, who has lived in Bray for more than 50 years, was awarded an MBE in 1968, an OBE in 1977 and a CBE in 2006; and was made Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours list last year.

He made a rare public appearance at the Wickham Festival in Hampshire over the weekend.