Quote:Catholic clergy 'abused children for decades in County Donegal'

Report is expected to claim police were complicit in cover-up of sexual abuse by priests and lay members of the church

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 29 August 2011 13.36 BST

County Donegal in Ireland is about to have its bucolic image shattered by a report into how paedophiles, both clergy and laity, abused children for decades.

An investigation into clerical sex abuse in the Catholic diocese of Raphoe in County Donegal is about to report its findings, which are expected to be damning. Meanwhile, new evidence has emerged from victims of a parallel paedophile ring operating in the same Gaelic-speaking corner of the Irish Republic.

A number of survivors of abuse have told the Guardian that lay members of the church as well as priests sexually exploited them for years in the county.

And as with the expected conclusion of the report into Raphoe, they say the national police service, the Garda, was complicit in a culture of cover-up that allowed the perpetrators to carry on abusing them.

Speaking for the first time about his abuse as a child and the subsequent cover-up, John O'Donnell revealed that he had been abused since he was nine by a lay member of a local church choir.

"He assaulted me from when I was nine until I was 15, until I was old enough to know it was wrong. This man took advantage because I was adopted and regarded as something lower than most kids in the area.

"The abuse took place at his home and in a shop he ran. It went on from 1965 to 1972."

O'Donnell said that in 1973 he went to a local Garda station to report that he had been raped by the man, who has since died. He said the reaction to his claim was violent.

"A local guard was outraged that I was naming such a fine upstanding member of the community as a child rapist. The officer slapped me on the face and told me to get out. He said to me that I was adopted and not worth anything. From that day on I never fully trusted a member of the Garda Síochána."

For years, O'Donnell said, he hid what had happened to him, and got married and raised a family without discussing it with his loved ones. It was only in the late 1990s when revelations of widespread child abuse rocked the Irish Catholic church that he decided to face up to what had happened to him.

"I found out that my abuser was still in the church choir and I was outraged because he was working with children. So I drove up to a parochial house in the area and tried to speak to the parish priest about this man. At the time I had finally got somewhere with the gardaí and they had questioned this man in a Donegal police station. I informed the parish priest about this but he wouldn't even let me across his door. He kept saying: 'No, no, no … I am not speaking to you about this.' He didn't want to know, and bear in mind this was only back in 2005."

O'Donnell has claimed that other victims in this corner of Donegal are coming forward, with a picture emerging of an organised paedophile ring. Police are investigating their claims.

The Guardian has spoken to a number of other men in Donegal who have made similar allegations of an abuse ring and a cover-up spanning decades.

Throughout the decades of denial, the young men who were preyed upon by paedophiles in the county, both inside and outside the church, had one champion a retired police detective, Martin Ridge.

Ridge moved to the county at the end of his career, and became so disturbed by official indifference that he wrote a book about the children's experiences, Breaking the Silence.

He predicted that the Raphoe report would be "damning" and expose the same culture of "local denial and cover-up" that was found in other Catholic dioceses across Ireland.

Ridge admitted the police force he served in all his working life would not be spared withering criticism in the Raphoe report. Two years ago the Murphy report into widespread clerical abuse of children in Dublin, Ireland's largest Catholic diocese, found that senior Garda officers colluded with four archbishops and top clerics in covering up the sex crimes of priests on a massive scale in the city.

"There were 45 victims of three different paedophiles, one of whom was a priest, another a school teacher. None of the victims wanted to be interviewed in local gardaí stations. The question has to be asked as to why they did not trust the local force when this was going on," Ridge said.

The ex-Garda officer too has confirmed that an investigation is now under way into the alleged ring of abuse in north-west Ireland involving both priests and non-members of the clergy. It is understood to include an investigation into how a convicted child sex offender got a job in a local youth hostel after he was released from prison in 2006.

O'Donnell, meanwhile, opted to remain living in Falcarragh, County Donegal, despite the climate of cover-up and fear he has had to endure.

Surveying the natural beauty of the area, with its stunning mountains and seascapes, the 55-year-old said: "Yes, it's a beautiful area with amazing views and scenery … it would be even more beautiful but for some of the bastards still living here."

Quote:Paedophile priest is sentenced to four years

Wednesday 29 February 2012 Channnel 4 News

As paedophile priest Daniel Curran is sentenced in Northern Ireland, one of his victims tells Carl Dinnen: 'I am bringing the Devil's disciple to justice.'

Daniel Curran can't be sure how many boys he abused. He was drunk at the time. Having pleaded guilty, the former priest received a four year sentence in Downpatrick's imposing court house for the abuse of two boys.

Curran admitted the charges although could not actually remember the offences.

Because I have been forced to live a secretive life, it's time for him to be named and shamed.
Abuse victim

The boys do. Now grown men they can't be identified. But I spoke to one of them on condition of anonymity ahead of the sentencing. He says the abuse nearly ruined his life and that two people he knew committed suicide because of it: "He has ruined and torn apart people's lives. But he's not going to ruin me. I will see that man in court and he is not going to ruin me."

Exciting

He tells me how Curran would bring groups of boys to his holiday cottage at the weekends. This was during the Troubles. The boys lived in Curran's Falls Road parish at the epicentre of the violence.

Curran's victim told Channel 4 News: "He would take three, four, five altar boys to his cottage which had no running water or electricity. There was this big open fire and paraffin lamps, so for a group of boys from Belfast it was quite exciting".

Their parents were happy for them to get away. Once the abuse started the victim asked his mother if he could go to a youth club instead. She said 'no'.

In order to get him out of Belfast, in order to protect her son, she unwittingly sent him away with a paedophile. The abuse continued for two years.

His victim remembers: "I was going around hoping someone would say to me, 'Do you know what this man is doing?' I used to find excuses not to go, youth club, homework, but you wouldn't have said no to the priest."

Devil's disciple

The church eventually moved Curran out of his parish. Last week the judge asked if that was in order to cover up the abuse. "That is the suspicion," answered the prosecutor.

It has taken a long time for the scale of Curran's abuse to emerge. He was sent to England on a course by the Catholic church.

The course helped him address his drink problem and sexual issues but also advised him not to name more victims in order to protect their privacy.

Today will be the fourth time Curran has been sentenced. He has already served a seven year prison term for offences against nine children.

His victim says: "I am bringing the Devil's disciple to justice. The truth is at last going to come forward. Because I have been forced to live a secretive life, it's time for him to be named and shamed."

Quote:Jimmy Savile: Newsnight staff were furious after abuse report dropped

Journalists interviewed 10 victims and witnesses as they looked into allegations of child sex abuse by TV and radio star

Dan Sabbagh and Josh Halliday
The Guardian, Monday 1 October 2012 20.31 BST

A 10-minute Newsnight film looking into allegations of child sex abuse by Sir Jimmy Savile was dropped by the programme's editor last December, even though journalists conducting the investigation had interviewed 10 alleged victims and witnesses and believed they had enough information to broadcast the story.

The intervention by Peter Rippon, Newsnight's editor, prompted a furious row behind the scenes and led journalists connected with the programme to ask questions in private about what BBC bosses above Rippon knew about the film and the decision to pull it.

The film's transmission was scheduled for mid-December, a couple of weeks before the airing by the BBC of Christmas tributes to the presenter of Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It, who died in October 2011. Pulling the film avoided a potential embarrassment for the corporation, which was elsewhere feting him as a hero to the public. BBC1 broadcast a special edition of Jim'll Fix It, hosted by Shane Ritchie, over the holiday season.

The BBC insisted on Monday that it decided not to proceed with the Newsnight film for "editorial reasons" because the abuse story "could not be substantiated", but sources within the BBC's newsroom said they feared that the corporation was embarrassed about the timing of the report in the light of its other Savile coverage.

ITV will broadcast a documentary on Wednesday night featuring claims from five women that they were sexually abused by Savile when they were girls.

One of the five, Fiona, tells the programme she was abused at BBC Television Centre in the 1970s when she had gone with other girls from Duncroft approved school near Staines, Surrey, to watch the radio DJ film a piece linked to the Clunk Click road safety campaign.

In a pre-recorded interview, Fiona (whose surname is not supplied) said that when she was at the BBC "we knew what was expected of us, we had to pay. He had an alcove in his dressing room that had a curtain over it and he would take you behind the curtain".

She added: "He always touched my breasts but at the same time he would be touching my breasts he'd always have his hands down my knickers. There were no staff around in the room, just the girls in there and one or two other people so I suppose the privacy we got was from the curtain in the alcove but, I have no doubt that he went and told everybody else what he did afterwards".

ITV's research builds on the unreleased Newsnight film and is based on an investigation conducted by former detective Mark Williams-Thomas, who acted as an adviser to the BBC team. Newsnight's work began almost immediately after Savile's death at the age of 84. Within about a month, the BBC team had persuaded one victim to be filmed on the record; the others were only prepared to give evidence anonymously or under pseudonyms.

The Newsnight reporters involved were confident enough in their material to put together a script for a 10- or 12-minute package, indicating they believed their film was largely complete. Initially, Rippon was understood to be ready to air it.

However, the mood changed soon afterwards. It is understood that the reporters were asked to meet two preconditions set by Rippon. First, they had to demonstrate that there had been a police investigation into Savile. Newsnight was able to confirm privately that he had been interviewed under caution in 2007 a fact not stated in public until Monday .

At this point, a second condition was introduced. Newsnight had learned that the Crown Prosecution Service had concluded that it was not in the public interest to charge Savile, and the Newsnight team was asked to find out why. Some of those interviewed by the BBC said they believed Savile was not charged because by then he was too old. The production team were asked to confirm this with the CPS, but the prosecutors would only say they did not proceed against Savile for lack of evidence. It is understood that when this information was relayed to Rippon, it was used as the justification for quashing the film, causing resentment that gradually spread around the newsroom.

It is not clear who if anybody Rippon consulted at the BBC before the bar on conditions that had to be met to air the film changed. Official BBC sources insisted that the decision not to air the programme was an editorial judgment made by the Newsnight editor, and not imposed by any senior executive above him.

It is understood that Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News, was made aware of the Newsnight investigation as part of routine editorial procedures. But insiders said she did not take the final decision on whether the programme should be broadcast. The BBC said: "It is absolutely untrue that the Newsnight investigation was dropped for anything other than editorial reasons. We have been very clear from the start that the piece was not broadcast because the story we were pursuing could not be substantiated. To say otherwise is false and very damaging to the BBC and individuals. The notion that internal pressure was applied appears to be a malicious rumour.

"No pressure was applied to drop this investigation. None. To suggest otherwise is to risk impugning the professional reputation and integrity of a number of journalists."

Quote:Jimmy Savile: investigated over Jersey abuse claims

As the Met opens an inquiry following fresh allegations against the late DJ Sir Jimmy Savile, it emerges he was investigated as part of an inquiry into the Haut de la Garenne children's home.

Jimmy Savile - abuse allegations continue

Channel 4 News

The three-year inquiry into child abuse at the Haut de la Garenne home heard allegations that Savile was involved in an indecent assault, also in the 1970s.

Jersey police did not pursue the allegations, due to lack of evidence.

Former editor of the News of the World Phil Hall told Channel 4 News the paper had also heard allegations about Savile's conduct: "There were people coming in to us at the time with stories about Jimmy Savile but there was nothing we could do to substantiate them."

Meanwhile, Surrey police have confirmed that a woman came to them on Monday with an historic allegation of rape relating to the late TV presenter.

The force said it has passed the details to the Metropolitan police, as the alleged incident is claimed to have taken place in London.

The BBC says it has conducted a trawl of its files and found no evidence of any complaints or allegations of misconduct against the flamboyant star.

In a statement it said: "A number of serious and disturbing allegations have been made over the past few days about the sexual abuse of teenage girls by Jimmy Savile.

"Some of these allegations relate to activity on BBC premises in the 1960s and 70s. We are horrified by allegations that anything of this sort could have happened at the BBC or have been carried out by anyone working for the BBC.

"They are allegations of a serious criminal nature which the police have the proper powers to investigate.

"So we have today asked the BBC Investigations Unit to make direct contact with all the police forces in receipt of allegations and offer to help them investigate these matters and provide full support to any lines of inquiry they wish to pursue."

Savile's family have said they are "sad and disgusted" at the allegations which have emerged a year after his death.
Indecent assault

Most of the allegations against Savile are due to be aired in an ITV documentary on Wednesday, entitled Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile.

The programme alleges that Savile abused girls in his Rolls-Royce, in a mobile home, and at BBC's television headquarters.

It includes interviews with a woman who says Savile sexually assaulted her while she was a student at the Duncroft special needs school near London, and with a former BBC staff member who says she saw the entertainer indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

Children's campaigner and a former BBC colleague of Savile, Esther Rantzen, told Channel 4 News she believed the rumours which circulated about him. "I heard the rumours almost immediately. It was always said that he behaved inappropriately with children, but rumours are not evidence.

She added: "He was so well connected that I think that was another reason that people didn't dare pass on what they knew."

Quote:HELLFIRE

Jersey home dossier to reveal children were murdered...then burnt

Exclusive by Lucy Panton

A SHOCK secret police report into the Jersey House of Hell children's home reveals youngsters there WERE murdered then BURNED in a furnace to COVER UP the atrocities.

It's feared island authorities may try to hush up the dossier on Haut de la Garenne orphanage but a source told us: "Officers on this case are in NO DOUBT what went on."

Exclusive: Secret Police Dossier Reveals Horror of Jersey Hell Home.

All the Kiddie Killers Left were Burnt Bones and Teeth.

Innocent children WERE raped, murdered and their bodies then BURNT in a FURNACE at the Jersey House of Horrors, says a top-secret police report into the scandal.

News of the World investigation reveals cops have shocking new evidence of how the killings were COVERED UP at the Haut de la Garenne care home.

Our chilling revelations come as officers prepare to hand over their damning dossier from Britain's biggest ever child abuse probe to the island's States of Jersey authorities.

A total of 65 teeth and around 100 charred fragments of bones are all that remain of victims detectives believe were abused and killed before their tortured corpses were thrown into a fiery grave inside the house of hell.

But records of children who stayed at the home over past decades have been destroyed so police have an impossible task of putting names to their grim finds.

A source close to the four-month investigation told us: "There's NO doubt in the minds of the detectives on this case that children WERE murdered in the home.

"Officers believe they have compelling evidence that youngsters' bodies were burnt in the home's furnace then the remains swept into the soil floor in the cellarsthe area that became dubbed the torture rooms'.

Ripped

"The problem has been identifying the children that went missing over the years. No records were kept of who came and left that place.

"Kids were shipped to the home from all over the UK and were never heard of again.
"All the inquiry team have to go on is this grim collection of teeth and bone fragments and no names to match up to the remains.

"Because this investigation has seen so many twists and turns people seem to find it hard to accept that children WERE slaughtered and their deaths WERE covered up."

Most of the dental remains discovered have been identified as children's milk teeth. And we can reveal that among more than 100 bone fragments is a TIBIA from a child's leg and what police believe is an "intact" ADENOID bone from the ear of an infant.

These were all retrieved from a fingertip search of the four cellars in the Home's EAST WING.

Forensic teams also found STRANDS OF NYLON which they have concluded came from the head of a broom.

And, because those type of nylon brooms were only used in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the discovery helped officers to put a date on when the bones were swept into the soil floor.

Cops are now convinced that those charred bones and teeth were emptied from the bottom of the home's industrial furnacelocated away in the West Wingwhen it was ripped out around that time to install oil-fired central heating.

Officers have spoken to builders who worked on renovations at the home but have been unable to discover what happened to the furnace after that. But they have taken samples from the chimney breast which was left behind.

Around that same time wooden floorboards were laid OVER the old soil floor in the east wing.

And it is there, within the hidden torture chambers just inches below, that the bones, a pair of shackles and children's clothing were found.

Also in the underground rooms police discovered a large concrete bath with traces of blood. A builder has also given evidence that he was asked to dig two lime pits in the ground nearby around that period. Lime pits have often been used to destroy corpses.

So far 97 people have come forward to complain they were abused as children at Haut de la Garenne. Many have described being drugged, shackled, raped, flogged and held in a dark cellar for long periods.

Much of the clothing found at the scene is thought to date back to the 1960s and 1970s when youngsters had to make their own clothes and shoes in the care home work shop.

Cops now believe that whoever was responsible for removing the furnace KNEW that there were children's remains inside. And they think it was moved while disgraced headmaster Colin Tilbrook was in charge of the place.

Tilbrook, now dead, has been described by former charges as being behind "some of the most horrific abuse" at the home.

We can reveal that cops now plan to quiz one of his closest aides who is still alive and living in the UK.

Tilbrook, who ran the home in the 1960s, died aged 62 in 1988 after suffering a heart attack in a public swimming pool. His foster daughter Tina Blee, 38, recently made an emotional visit to Haut de la Garenne to meet abuse victims and bravely told how SHE was raped by the monster every week as a child, after he took her in following his departure from Jersey.

She said: "I needed to come here to say sorry for what he's done. If children were killed here I'm convinced he played a big part in it.

"He was more than capable of murder."

This week police began a forensic examination inside a nearby World War II German bunker which victims say was used as a base for abusing children.

Six witnesses say they were sexually assaulted by staff at the squat brick building which houses a network of underground rooms and passages.

As that work starts, police have closed the doors on their detailed forensic hunt inside the hell home.

Lack of records still hampers police. But we can reveal that one mainland authority, Birmingham City Council, has presented the Jersey force with a list of children who were sent to the home but went missing.

Although four have now been tracked down, after a mammoth search one still remains unaccounted for.

Earlier this year we also uncovered allegations that pictures of BABIES being raped were taken in the care home and circulated by an international child porn ring.

Stash

Experts suspect the home was responsible for many of the seedy network's 9,000 sick pictures, discovered in an infamous haul in Holland in the Nineties.

It was dubbed the Zandvoort stash, after the town where it was foundbut the source studio was never uncovered.

Police said their latest intensive probe at Haut de la Garenne has produced more than 40 suspects.

Three men have already been charged with sex abuse offences as part of the inquiry. But now, despite the wealth of shocking detail uncovered by officers, there are fears the full truth about the House of Hell could be covered up yet again after the investigation boss, Jersey's tough No2 top cop Lenny Harper, retires next month.

Haut de la Garenne's abused former residents have repeatedly claimed that what happened was deliberately hushed up to avoid tarnishing Jersey's reputation as a family-friendly tourist haven and to give politicians in London no excuse to try to exercise more control over the island.

Although Jersey is part of the British Isles and under the Queen's rule, it has a separate government system and makes its own laws.

Jersey's 53-member parliament has no political parties and its politicians, judges, policemen and business leaders come from a small eliteoften linked by friendship or family.

In a separate case recently investigators were frustrated by the island's legal authorities who refused to charge a couple accused of beating their foster children with cricket bats. Despite being told by lawyers and an honorary police officer who reviewed the case that there was sufficient evidence to go ahead, the charges were blocked at the 11th hour.

A police source said: "The argument for not charging this couple was that their natural children have said they're of good character.

"The detailed statements of all the people who claim they were physically assaulted seem to count for nothing."

The Haut de la Garenne file, along with several others, is now complete but is "being held up" by lawyers.

Our inside source added: "There's a strong suspicion that the files are being held on to until Lenny Harper goes and a new team is in place.

"No one will be surprised if the truth about what happened in the care home never surfaces and once more the evidence gets swept under the carpet."

Quote:We were victims of Jimmy Savile: As pressure grows on BBC over 'cover up', two women come forward to describe their teenage ordeals at hands of TV host

Katrina Rose, 51, said she was attacked in Savile's flat when she was 14
Bebe Roberts, 62, claimed the 'sleazy' presenter sneaked into bedrooms at a girls boarding school and once assaulted her when she was 15
Third woman alleges she was raped at 15 during work experience stint
Former BBC chauffeur claimed drivers were sacked if they talked about the Jim'll Fix It presenter molesting girls
Saville accused of grooming girls as young as 12 by offering them sweets and tickets to attend his hit shows, including Top Of The Pops

By Sam Greenhill, Claire Ellicott and Jaya Narain

PUBLISHED: 23:02, 1 October 2012 | UPDATED: 10:24, 2 October 2012


Two women stepped forward yesterday to say they had been abused as teenagers by Sir Jimmy Savile.

As the scandal around the star deepened, Katrina Rose, 51, described how she was attacked in his flat after being invited to his radio show when she was 14.

She now regrets not speaking out when he was alive but lost her nerve' even though Savile ruined her life'.

The second victim to bravely waive her anonymity, Bebe Roberts, 62, claimed the sleazy' Jim'll Fix It presenter regularly sneaked into bedrooms at a girls' boarding school and once assaulted her when she was 15 and made a lewd proposition.

She said: I did not know what he was like until he did that. There were girls in there who were quite terrified of him.'

A third, unnamed, woman alleged she was raped aged 15 by the star during a work experience stint at the BBC. She yesterday reported her accusation to police for the first time.

As the BBC came under mounting pressure to order an inquiry into claims his activities have been covered up, it emerged that Savile who bragged to friends he was untouchable' was questioned under caution by Surrey Police in 2007 over abuse in the 1970s.

However, the presenter, who died last year aged 84, was never charged.

Amid an extraordinary series of fresh revelations yesterday:

A former BBC chauffeur claimed drivers were sacked if they talked about Savile molesting girls and the BBC even employed chaperones to prevent young girls entering Savile's dressing room.
Savile's BBC producer of 21 years said he was a Pied Piper' who regularly joked about girls of 16 being legal'.
As a row raged inside the BBC over why a Newsnight investigation into the star was shelved, insiders said Savile's proclivity for young girls was common knowledge'.
Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini said he had been waiting for this to come out for 30 years'.
It emerged Savile was a regular visitor to Haute de la Garenne, the notorious abuse-ridden Jersey children's home.

Savile is accused of grooming girls as young as 12 by offering them sweets and tickets to attend his hit shows such as Top Of The Pops, Jim'll Fix It and his Radio One breakfast show

Six women have told an ITV documentary, to be broadcast tomorrow night, they were sexually abused by Savile in his Rolls-Royce, at BBC Television Centre, at a hospital and at the now-closed Duncroft school for intelligent, emotionally disturbed girls' in Surrey.

Yesterday three more women came forward to say they too were victims.

One told the Mail she was raped by Savile when she did work experience at BBC Broadcasting House when she was 15 in 1986.

She said: I didn't tell anyone at the time. I only told my husband after Savile died. Everyone thought he was a saint but he was a sexual predator.

On the day it happened I had been working in the canteen. He came in and was talking to me. He told me I was very pretty and that he would like to buy me a cup of tea after work. I was flattered and excited. He picked me up in his Rolls and we went to his flat nearby. He went into another room soon after we got there and came out in just his underpants.

Then he raped me. He didn't say anything during or afterwards. I just left and went home.'

The woman has since made a statement to Surrey Police. Child abuse campaigners have demanded to know who knew what about the Savile claims during his decades at the BBC.

Yesterday a former BBC chauffeur made damaging allegations about how the scandal was hushed up. He said he had once driven home a hysterical' 12-year-old girl who claimed she had been sexually assaulted by Savile after appearing on Jim'll Fix It.

The girl sobbed her heart out all the way home' after she was allegedly abused by the presenter after the show during the mid-1970s. When she reached her front door, she collapsed into her mother's arms in tears, telling her: I'm sorry. It wasn't my fault. Jimmy grabbed me. He attacked me.'

The driver, who worked as a chauffeur for the BBC for 16 years, said staff members had previously been fired for talking about Savile's reputation, and he feared he would lose his job if he reported it.

He said the show's chiefs knew very well' that he had a reputation for sexually assaulting young contestants, and had even begun to employ chaperones to make sure girls could not be lured into his dressing room.

One Jim'll Fix It producer Roger Ordish described children following Savile around during filming as if he was a Pied Piper'.
DJ: I've known for 30 years

He added: He [Savile] spotted a woman and her daughter leaning out of the windows to have a look and he said: "Ello Missus, what's your name, and what's your daughter's name?"

Then he said: "And how old is she?" and the answer was "16" and he said: "Legal! Legal!" And we cut that out of course, but I thought that was just Jim making a joke.'

Mr Ordish, 74, insisted he never witnessed any abuse and if he had, he vows he would have done something about it'.

Children's campaigners last night said there should be a serious and thorough' investigation. Peter Saunders, of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said: It is important that we establish why and how nobody did anything about these allegations, to make sure it can never happen again.'

The BBC has said it has found no evidence of any misconduct by Savile. However, it added: These are serious and disturbing new allegations about which we understand the police have been informed. We will, of course, assist the police in every way we can.'
Savile's hands were fumbling about ... I just froze with fear

By cLAIRE ELLICOT

A former stage school pupil and child actress claims Sir Jimmy Savile sexually abused her at his Belgravia flat when she was just 14.

Katrina Rose, now a 51-year-old grandmother of two, said the presenter attacked her and tried to rape her after inviting her to watch him record his BBC radio show.

Last night, she waived her anonymity to speak out, telling the Daily Mail the episode had ruined' her life and that she regretted not coming forward while Savile was still alive and could have faced charges.

Miss Rose met the radio presenter in 1975 through her mother, who as a local newspaper journalist had covered Savile's visits to Broadmoor.

Savile initially asked her parents if their daughter would like to watch Top Of The Pops being filmed.

Her mother and father, a company director, gave their permission for her to go, and she took a friend along with her.

Nothing happened on that visit, but Savile then asked her parents if she would like to watch him record a radio show at a BBC studio in London. This time, he also asked that she come alone.

Miss Rose, from Hampton, South-West London, said: When he invited me to watch him record the show, I jumped at the chance as I went to stage school and wanted to be an actress.

He asked that I come alone because he could only do tours for "special people", so my parents gave me permission to get the train from Surrey where we lived.

I walked with him from his flat in Belgravia to the BBC studios and he wore a balaclava as he said he would be mobbed by fans without it. I wasn't worried as he was a family friend and my mother trusted him.

I sat with him while he recorded the show and felt really special. Afterwards, he said he'd call me a taxi home and invited me up to his flat for a cup of tea while I waited.

I was sitting on a chair and he came in with the tea and sat on the sofa. He asked he if I'd had a good day.

I said I had and thanked him and he said: "Come here and give me a hug then."

I was used to kissing and hugging relatives and family friends and he was my mother's friend, so I thought nothing of it. So I went and hugged him.'

She said Savile then touched her inappropriately. The next thing I knew, he was fumbling about, and his tongue was down my throat. I was horrified.

I just froze. I was paralysed with fear. I still wonder to this day why I didn't scream, but I've since read that victims of sexual offences often react in the same way I did. He eventually leaned back and asked if I was enjoying it. I said "No" and he stopped.

I have no doubt that he wanted to have sex with me and I was frightened.'

Miss Rose, who used to own her own recruitment firm before taking early retirement due to illness, added: I went home to my mother and told her what had happened, but I'm not sure she understood how serious it was.
'Just hearing his name made me sick and if anyone ever lights a cigar, to this day I feel like I want to throw up. I still remember his disgusting cigar breath and I have hated the smell ever since'

I didn't tell my father after her reaction. There was never any question of me going to the police at the time.

The word paedophile wasn't even used then and people just called them dirty old men.

I think it's only now that attitudes have changed and that other victims have come forward that I can talk about it.'

The former child actress, who is divorced and has two sons, added: I think the only reason he stopped when I told him to was because he was worried about my mother and father knowing.

It sounds like a lot of his victims didn't have that support network and so didn't have anyone to turn to when he abused them.

He later asked a contact of his at Broadmoor to apologise to me through my mother, though didn't say what he was apologising for.'

She said that she had never been able to trust men following the attack and had been to see counsellors as a result.

It has had a terrible effect on my life and I have been unable to form stable relationships ever since.

Being taken advantage of like that destroys your self-esteem,' she said.

He was such a big public figure and people knew him as a saint. Just hearing his name made me sick and if anyone ever lights a cigar, to this day I feel like I want to throw up.

I still remember his disgusting cigar breath and I have hated the smell ever since.'

She added: I was too young to understand what he did to me and it is only years later that I have felt able to talk about what happened.

I considered coming forward so many times because I knew there would be so many other girls. It tortures me that I was not brave enough to.

I tried to come forward ten years ago, but I lost my nerve. My only regret now is that I didn't do it while he was alive and could be charged.'
He'd always turn up as we were getting ready for bed

By JAYA NARAIN

A boarding school pupil has accused Savile of molesting her outside her dormitory when she was 15.

Savile would regularly visit Duncroft Approved School in Surrey after receiving invitations from its headmistress.

The idea was that the TV and radio personality would raise the profile of the school, which accommodated girls with behavioural difficulties.

But former pupil Bebe Roberts said Savile would deliberately visit dormitories as the girls changed for bed.

Now 62, Mrs Roberts waived her anonymity to speak out about the sleazy' star who molested her as she walked outside her dormitory.

She revealed she was too scared to report him to staff at the school, which has since closed, as she feared no-one would believe her.

She said: I was in the corridor outside our dorm, which was called Wedgewood, when he came up at the back of me and put his arm around my back and onto my breast.

The touching was outside the clothing but he knew what he was doing.'

She said Savile then made a lewd remark to her, adding: I did not know what he was like until he did that.

I suppose we were a little bit star struck. After that I just kept away from him.'

Mrs Roberts, now a mother of four daughters, said Savile attacked her in 1965 when he was already a well-known radio DJ.

He was a nasty man I think nowadays he would be classed as a paedophile,' she added.

If you were walking down the corridor he would come up close and touch you inappropriately.

He definitely liked young girls. I feel quite bad about saying this because they say you should not speak ill of the dead.

But the things he did and said were definitely inappropriate. There were girls in there who were quite terrified of him.'

She went on: I think Savile stayed with the headmistress but he never used the private staircase to get her apartment - he always went past the girls' dormitories.

It happened to me just the once. He had the habit of coming upstairs to the bedrooms he never knocked, he just walked straight in.

We were only allowed to go to the bedrooms at certain times so it was pretty obvious we were either getting ready for bed or getting up. He always came when we were getting ready for bed. There was not a single girl who wanted to be alone in a bedroom with Jimmy Savile. He would always be making sleazy remarks.'

Mrs Roberts, of Malpas, Cheshire, added: If anyone had done such things to my daughters, I would have gone to the police.

But if you told a member of staff at the school, they would not have believed you. You were already considered a bad girl. When I learned he had died, I did not really care. He was not someone I had any admiration for.

I don't think I would have said this if he had had any children because it would be horrible to know that your father was basically a paedophile.

There were plenty of places in the gardens and the grounds where he could have taken girls but I cannot say that he ever did.'

Quote:In 1971 he was awarded the OBE,[45] which he always subsequently appended to his signature.

Jimmy Savile had both a Royal and Papal knighthood (Order of St. Gregory the Great)

He was a Knights Hospitaller (also known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, Order of St. John, Knights of Malta, and Chevaliers of Malta)