The Power of the Paedos - another high profile case hits the 'never happened' wall?

[Jan Klimkowski]

Hmmmmm.....

Pollard report: George Entwistle 'did not read emails' about Jimmy Savile

Former BBC director general claims he did not read emails from two senior colleagues hinting at Savile's 'dark side'

Josh Halliday
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 December 2012 15.27 GMT

George Entwistle
Former BBC director general George Entwistle. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA

Josh Halliday

Former BBC director general George Entwistle has claimed he did not read emails from two senior colleagues hinting at Jimmy Savile's "dark side" in a discussion about planned obituaries for the disgraced Jim'll Fix It host.

The emails were revealed in the Pollard report, published on Wednesday, into the BBC's handling of the dropped Newsnight film on Savile in late 2011. Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News who oversaw the review, described the emails as a "missed opportunity" and said they raised questions for Entwistle.

Entwistle, who resigned from the BBC with a £450,000 payoff last month after just 54 days in the job, was told in an email from the corporation's then head of events Nick Vaughan-Barratt in May 2010, nearly 18 months before Savile died, that he had worked with the TV and radio presenter and saw "the real truth" and would feel uneasy about making a tribute to him.

Vaughan-Barratt told Entwistle in the email in May 2010: "We have no obit and I am not sure we would want one ... My first job in TV was on a JS show, I saw the complex and sometimes conflicting nature of the man at first hand ... I'd feel v queasy about an obit. I saw the real truth!!!"

When interviewed by Pollard last month Vaughan-Barratt explained that by "dark side" he meant: "We haven't got an obit for him. I don't think we should make one. The guy is pretty complex and difficult and there is a dark side."

Vaughan-Barratt told Pollard that he was not aware of specific allegations of child sex abuse by Savile until late 2012.

Entwistle said in an email to Vaughan-Barratt in May 2010 that he did not think the BBC needed a pre-prepared obituary for Savile. At the time Entwistle was BBC controller of knowledge commissioning, overseeing all TV factual output. He later became BBC Vision director ultimately responsible for all TV programmes before his brief reign as director general began in September.

Another email to Entwistle when he was running BBC Vision from Jan Younghusband, the commissioning editor for BBC music and events, sent on the day after Savile's death in October 2011, said: "I gather we didn't prepare the obit because of the darker side of the story ... There are aspects of this which are hard to tell."

Entwistle maintained in interviews with Pollard that he had never read the emails referring to Savile's "dark side". However, Pollard's report said a forensic examination of two email accounts controlled by Entwistle discovered that the emails from Younghusband appeared as "read", but that it was not possible to establish whether they were read by Entwistle or his personal assistant.

The former director general told Pollard: "It is hard to know what he means by that and what I would have taken from it."

Pollard concluded that there was "knowledge, not just rumour" within BBC Vision about the "unsavoury side of Savile's character at the time the Christmas tribute programmes were planned".

The Pollard review published further emails from Vaughan-Barratt to Younghusband. He told Younghusband in an email on the day after Savile's death that the BBC had decided not to prepare an obituary for Savile in advance.

Vaughan-Barratt added in the email: "We decided that the dark side to Jim (I worked with him for 10 years) would make it impossible to make an honest film that could be shown close to death. But maybe one could be made for later."

In follow-up emails, Entwistle and Danny Cohen, BBC1 controller, said the channel was not the right place for a commemoration of Savile's life, but did not explain why.

Those emails prompted Younghusband to reply to the two executives: "'I gather we didn't prepare the obit because of the darker side of the story. So something celebrating a particular part of his TV career is probably better than the [life] story as there are aspects of this which are hard to tell."

Younghusband said in an interview with Pollard that she believed the "darker side" to refer to claims that Savile mishandled charity money.

In a later submission to Pollard's inquiry, Entwistle said Vaughan-Barratt and Younghusband would have told him if they had "real suspicions of misconduct" about Savile. He pointed out that none of the emails explicitly referred to abuse and said he only became aware of their existence during searches for the Pollard review.

Lord Patten, the BBC Trust chairman, said in a press conference after the publication of the Pollard report that it was taking legal advice about Entwistle's payoff, which has attracted significant criticism.

Entwistle said in a statement following the publication of the Pollard report on Wednesday: "As director general, in October 2012, as soon as I became aware of allegations of sexual abuse against Savile, I took the matter straight to the police and offered the BBC's full co-operation with their investigations."

So, BBC Director General George Entwhistle got a £450k payoff whilst claiming he didn't bother to read emails alerting him to Savile's "dark side".

At one level, Entwhistle adopted the James Murdoch approach. Faced between admitting knowledge of abusive practices and doing nothing about them, and the alternative of claiming he couldn't have been expected to read everything or know what was going on in his organisation, Entwhistle made the Murdoch choice.

He pleaded ignorance and a complete lack of curiosity.

An ignorant and incurious Chief Executive is, at best, an incompetent Chief Executive who deserves to be sacked with zero compensation.

At worst, an ignorant and incurious Chief Executive is simply trying to save his own skin, and is a liar.

Meanwhile, as a onetime BBC hack, let me decode some of the BBC speak.

Vaughan-Barratt told Entwistle in the email in May 2010: "We have no obit and I am not sure we would want one ... My first job in TV was on a JS show, I saw the complex and sometimes conflicting nature of the man at first hand ... I'd feel v queasy about an obit. I saw the real truth!!!"

When interviewed by Pollard last month Vaughan-Barratt explained that by "dark side" he meant: "We haven't got an obit for him. I don't think we should make one. The guy is pretty complex and difficult and there is a dark side."

An "obit" is an obituary film. When famous people are near death, the BBC will prepare obituary films ready for transmission on the day, or within days, of their death. This enables proper research, filming, detailed interviews and editing to take place before the person dies.

Obits are typically prepared for national and international heroes: the Queen, the Pope, a comedian, a beloved celebrity who performed good works.

Vaughan-Barratt is saying BBC staff who'd worked with Savile knew that he was not worthy....