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

[Jan Klimkowski]

This has been leading news broadcasts in the UK.

Savile was a predatory paedophile, active until his death, operating in security units for the criminally insane, in children's hospitals, in schools, in orphanages, and in BBC TV studios.

He could have been stopped and wasn't.

I note that this report does not address Savile's presumed child abuse in Jersey, nor the networks within which he operated.

Police errors left Jimmy Savile free to 'groom the nation'

Public prosecutor promises to reinvestigate thousands of sexual assault cases after extent of Savile's crimes revealed

Sandra Laville, Esther Addley, Josh Halliday
The Guardian, Friday 11 January 2013 20.18 GMT

Jimmy Savile
When Jimmy Savile was interviewed by detectives in 2009 the encounter was "perfunctory", a police review found. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

A litany of failings by police and prosecutors meant the one chance to bring Jimmy Savile to justice while he was alive was lost, the director of public prosecution has admitted as he promised to reinvestigate thousands of sexual assault cases where victims felt they were not believed.
Savile case explained

1 Key findings
2 Full Met and NSPCC report (pdf)
3 Full CPS report (pdf)
4 The report timeline

Three official reports on Friday revealed for the first time the damning details of how the authorities just three years ago failed to build a case against the BBC celebrity, who sexually assaulted children and young people across six decades and used the power of his fame to "groom the nation".

The BBC, hospitals, schools, the police and prosecutors all let down the hundreds of victims, aged as young as eight, allowing the predatory paedophile to continue abusing "in plain sight" throughout his lifetime. Police across the country including the Metropolitan police, Surrey, Sussex and Savile's home force, West Yorkshire, failed to share information, in some cases failed to record allegations against him and in other cases even warned victims off.

When Savile was finally interviewed by detectives in 2009, the encounter was "perfunctory" and he was allowed to control the proceedings, a review by Surrey police found.

Apologising to the victims, Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said victims of any sexual abuse, no matter how historic, who felt their complaints were mishandled, should come forward, and promised a review of such cases. Panels will be set up across the country by police and prosecutors to re-examine cases. This had to be a "watershed moment" in the way complaints from victims of sexual assault were handled, he said, adding that victims had to be believed.

"The approach of the police and prosecutors to credibility in sexual assault cases has to change," he said. "Testing the complainant's account is only one part of the exercise; equally important is testing the suspect's account and building stronger cases by linking evidence and allegations."

Asked if heads should roll at the CPS because of the failings, David Cameron's spokesman said: "That is a matter for the relevant authorities. The prime minister's view on all of this is that it is absolutely right that every institution involved gets to the bottom of exactly what has gone on."

Starmer spoke as reports by the Met and the NSPCC, the Crown Prosecution Service and Surrey police revealed extraordinary missed opportunities and mistakes which allowed Savile to escape the best chance of being brought to justice three years ago after four women had come forward to Surrey and Sussex police.

The failings included:

Police forces not recording allegations or sharing information and the women not being informed other victims were making similar allegations.

The reviewing lawyer for the CPS, a "rape specialist", dismissing the allegations early on as "relatively minor".

West Yorkshire failing to pursue several allegations against Savile, and Sussex police even scaring a victim off by saying the star's lawyers "would make mincemeat" of her.

The police treating the women's accounts with too much caution.

Alison Levitt, QC, principle legal adviser for the CPS, who reviewed the failings by police and prosecutors, said: "The case against Jimmy Savile was a strong one, consisting as it did of four apparently independent allegations of sexual behaviour towards young women and girls with whom he came into contact as a result of his fame and his charitable work.

"There was, on the evidence I have seen, a realistic prospect of conviction in relation to each of the three allegations which amounted to offences and thus were capable of being charged."

Carole Wells, a former boarding school pupil who was assaulted by Savile when she was 14, said: "I am pleased police have finally acknowledged that Jimmy Savile was a sexual predator. For so long, there's always doubt when you're not believed. Something good has now got to come out of this watershed day. It's sad that it has got to this but hopefully it means that kids [will] be believed [by police]."

The joint report by the Met and NSPCC, called Giving Victims a Voice, revealed the terrible scale of Savile's offending. Peter Watt of the NSPCC said he was an "evil and manipulative" paedophile and Commander Peter Spindler said he had "groomed the nation".

More than 450 victims have come forward to police and the charity since October, most of whom 73% were abused as children.

Thirty four people, including 28 children, were raped by Savile, whose abuse spanned 1955 to 2009 and took place in schools, 13 hospitals and a hospice, and BBC television and radio studios between 1959 and 2006.

Spindler said: "Savile's offending footprint was vast, predatory and opportunistic. He cannot face justice today but we hope this report gives some comfort to his hundreds of victims ... We must learn from these shocking events."

The peak period of his offending coincided with his peak fame when he was in his 40s and 50s. The police have recorded 214 sexual crimes against him, but that figure is likely to rise. Twenty eight of his victims were under 10.

But Peter Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said no one should think that Savile was a one-off: "There are people who spend their lifetimes abusing children and we have got to do something about it."