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(not satire – it’s UK today)
Revealed – how Jimmy Savile used UK libel laws to cover his crimes
There’s a very interesting quote from Jimmy Savile contained in the report that was released yesterday into how he managed to get away with abusing hundreds of children and women for decades.
It comes on page 64 – when Savile reveals in a police interview in 2009 what he called his ‘policy’ on how he dealt with accusations of abuse.
You can read it for yourself in the report here, but basically he says he had a legal team on standby and would simply threaten anyone accusing him with libel.
He says they always backed down – including 5 newspapers who settled with him after he’d threatened to sue them.
So it turns out UK libel laws are not just an ass. They also enable rich and powerful people like Savile to get away with heinous crimes like child abuse.
Now I’ve written before about how in my opinion Lord McAlpine is cynically exploiting UK libel laws to try to shut up criticism of the rich and powerful:
I hope Lord McAlpine isn’t going to sue me for saying this?
Why are UK police helping McAlpine sue twitter users when he’s a tax exile in Italy?
And I’ve also written how McAlpine’s lawyers are most likely breaking the solicitors’ code of conduct in threatening twitter users:
Are McAlpine’s lawyers breaking the solicitors’ code of practice?
But I wonder if McAlpine and his advisers have considered that while his policy of threatening everyone left right and centre with libel – in exactly the same way as Savile did – is paying him huge financial dividends, it’s entirely possible to win a legal battle but at the same time lose the moral and public relations one?
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Related articles by Tom Pride:
Savile wasn’t ‘hiding in plain sight’. It was a cover-up.
Justice? McAlpine gets hundreds of thousands in compensation while child victims get next to nothing
I hope Lord McAlpine isn’t going to sue me for saying this?
Are McAlpine’s lawyers breaking the solicitors’ code of practice?
Why are UK police helping McAlpine sue twitter users when he’s a tax exile in Italy?
Lord McAlpine in his own damning words – The New Machiavelli?
It was the police – not the BBC – who wrongly named Lord McAlpine in abuse allegations
How did Cyril Smith get away with paedophilia? By threatening tweeters and bloggers with libel!
Child abuse scandal can of worms – just who is Daily Mail reporter David Rose?
High level child abuse cover-up? Why has Theresa May barred a US journalist from the UK?
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I would now, even more so than before, appreciate knowing the real facts about the connection between the seemingly ‘worst minor-molester in modern history’ and she who could similarly be termed ‘the worst miner-molester in modern history’.
He stayed with her at Chequers for eleven successive Christmas-times; she must have known a little more thasn us about his dark side.
If we never get the truth, perhaps we could have the play- or film-rights. We surely have here a modern Rasputin in the guise of Jimmy Savile. A vile creature who could manipulate ‘royalty’ –as thatcher probably saw herself– and twist her and them around his gold-ringed fingers.
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I make no judgement on McAlpine, but I have spoken many times about the inappropriate way his solicitors have conducted his litigation. The Sally Bercow demand is the most curious and indeed foolhardy if she does not back down as she has every right not to. The media campaign and abuse which has followed Mrs Bercow is a particularly unpleasant aspect of this as well as the reconcilation forms on RMPI’s website.
Using libel law has often been used to protect those engaged in wrong doing. Just look at the newspaper which settled a libel claim for a large amount with the professional cyclist who was subsequently banned for the practice he was accused of.
Then there have been the chancers, such as Robert Dee, a tennis player on the Spanish circuit who was described by the media as the world’s worst tennis player after a consecutive run of 50 odd defeats. He sued all the media corporations who said and repeated that and all except one caved in and settled. One newspaper fought the libel claim and won. The reason they won? – the judge agreed that Dee was the worst professonial tennis player in the context of 50 odd defeats. Simply unbelievable.this nonsense was allowed to be even heard by a judge.
Has Dee returned his libel settlements? Of course not. They are stil proudly displayed on his appalling website. This one of the most bizarre libel stories and just shows how inept and gutless the lawyers for all the media corporations who settled really are. It also shows what a bunch of greedy opportunists, Dee and his solicitors are:
http://www.robertdee.org/
This is only one example of the numerous disgraceful legal actions which have been so common in the UK these past few years. Say or report the truth and get sued for libel. Some of these claims are even made at the taxpayers expense – through court fee exemption. It is not only the law which needs changing but it is its misuse and abuse which needs to be addressed. Ban these libel fools and wasters and their solicitors from the courts and make them pay back the money they extorted from those gullible and stupid enough to fall for it.
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Wish you hadnt mentioned that now Tom because ‘gagging order’ sounds like something nasty savile carried out on his victims.
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Sorry Tom I got confused over which McScalpine child abuser you meant . The one who collects pictures of naked under age girls or the one who abused children in care homes.?
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Oh wait something has just occured to me. On the map showing where savile commited his crimes it mentions Jersey and that could only mean one thing. Haute Garenne care home and there is a photo of him being there. That could mean that your old mucker (or muckspreader) David rose look like the lying bastard he is . Hmm.
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The one certain fact about the Jimmy Saville affair is that the police, the press, CPS, and most disgustingly of all solicitors who will benefit enormously from the process, have pronounced the dead guilty, without reservation, and more importantly without trial. The two people who have been named as abusers by the press, by the Independent and Scallywag in 1994, and more recently by twitter and the like, have seen the case against them collapse, and received some rather large payments admitting libel. I recognise there is a school of thought which simply says the living are protected because there is some overarching X-files cover up.
As an informed professional I have been concerned for sometime about the credibility of many of the pronouncements made in relation to theJimmy Saville affair, and the other subjects which have become linked to it; namely Bryn Alun, Bryn Estyn, and the prescence of a number of homosexuals in the Conservative party. There has also been an undertone of race in some of the references to the rather well known black speach writer for Margaret thatcher, and the sites which have aimed their comment at Greville Janner.
In the case of both Cyril Smith and Jimmy Saville the original exposees were used in practice as ‘fishing’ expeditions, that is people were invited by the authorities responsible to ellicite further complaints. It may seem to the public that there is nothing wrong with this – but a similar process was initiated by the police in relation to Bryn Estyn between 1994 and 1999, with the consequence that literally hundreds of residential workers were accused, many untruthfully. ‘Fishing’ means that anyone with a grudge against you can come forward with allegations that resemble those already made. In addition there always was a significant financial motive for making allegations – despite what some people think on this site a case did not have to proved, simply an allegation of abuse made, and for sexual abuse, (which was not the majority of the Bryn Estyn allegations), £4,000 was payable by 1999, £11,000 by 2002, and I think about £22,0000 now. In the Saville case the solicitor criticised the BBC for not publishing the original expossee, because it could have stopped her clients going after his estate, (she was positively slavering at the thought of this), which is reportedly worth several millions.
The position we have now reached is that the number, age, gender, and modus opp-erandi proposed bears no resemblance to the group of allegations made in the original expossee. To be frank the allegations sound incredible, and many of them may be shown to be incredible. There is still plenty of ambiguity in this report – which would have been picked away by any competent defence, namely everyone under the age of 18 is considered a child – but there was of course no crime committed if the girls were above 16 and gave their consent. The few independent witnesses were aware that he liked sex with young girls, but none of them, not the BBC worker in Manchester or his chauffer implied that by this they meant underage girls, or indeed that the girls were unwilling. Interestingly he regularly used his secretary of 27 or so years, from Stoke Mandeville as a chaperon, which implies that he was fully aware of the risk of allegation. She in the second ITV documentary did not refer to one inappropriate episode; (in effect she was used by the policeman to access documents to try and cast Margaret Thatcher in a bad light; the police officer made no reference to Jimmy saville’s equally close ties to Tony Blair, do I detect political bias here?)
The CPS have criticised past investigations saying that they would have acted. Is this really the case and if they were to do so, should we see this as positive? Cyril Smith was investigated in 1970, in relation to innapropriate touching an examinations at what sounds like a hostel in Rochdale, said to have taken place in about 1962. What evidence would have allowed this matter to go to court? I am doubtful that there was any independent evidence for the police in 1970, and rather think that the same would have applied when the allegations were first aired in 1979, or any time later. Now it may mean that the CPS would give greater credibility to the witness testimony; but would these witnesses have been credible? Perhaps the only was to find out is to actually put Jimmy Savfille on trial, and find him postumously innocent or guilty.
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im sorry you don’t get questioned by the police about the same offense 6 times by acedent.
these allegations were made about savile when he was alive.
i agree some instigation practices seem a bid dodgy but that does not prove innocence.
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“….and the presence of a number of homosexuals in the Conservative party”.
What relevance has this?
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the victims who reported Saviles crimes to the police and were turned away, should now sue CPS and those involved in the cover up, because thats what it was a bloody big coverup!!
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The relevance is a view sustained by sites such as Chris Spivey, C.H.R.I.S, and The Seeker, that identify homosexual practices, illegality and paedophilia. This goes all the way back to the Scalliwag article of 1994. All homosexual acts were illegal before 1967, and homosexual acts with males under the age of 21, thereafter. Scalliwag alleged that about a dozen Conservative MPs and indeed a leader of the liberal Party were intimately connected, (they stopped just short of saying involved) with a paedophile ring, led they believed by the speach writer. Interestingly they had it both ways, either the speach writer was a paedophile, or if there was no conviction there had been a cover up at the highest of levels. It was these allegations, which were regurgitated by Tom Whatson in parliament and on his web-site, in effect to identify being a Conservative supporter with being a paedophile. Clearly any MP or celebrity who had intercourse with a male below the age of 21 but older than 16, between 1967 and about 2000, committed illegal acts, but did that make them paedophiles. The above sites answer this question yes.
Interestingly Tom Whatson has removed his letters to David Cameron and Rob Wilson, and the 700 idolising responses, possibly for legal reasons. He did not respond to my six attempts to identify who he was accusing of what. His site did contain an interesting reference to sources within the metropolitan police force that they had been told to drop investigations in order to protect leading Conservatives. I have suggested elsewhere that these sources should be identified in order to see if there is any link with the Mitchell case, in particular with the leader of the Police Confederation, Mr Tully.
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I do not know whether Jimmy Saville is innocent or guilty of the offences he has been accused. What I can say is that the evidence I have seen is not convincing. While there is a lot of evidence I have not seen, I believe the strongest evidence has probably been put on TV, (the police officer who did the original expossee assured us this was the case). In relation to this the questioning and re-questioning of witnesses over and over again, will not actually strengthen the case but would probably undermine it. In the Macalpine case we know the police shew pictures of various males to Mr Measham. How many? What information was associated with the photos? How many times has he been interviewed by the police? How many times by reporters? In the Scalliwag article of 1994, a reporter, pretty much taking the law into their own hands shew four photos, includine one of Lord Macalpine to an unknown number of alleged victims from Bryn Estyn. At least one picked out a photo of someone perhaps mildly well known from three unknowns. Is this not to be expected? Some of the key witnesses in the Saville affair have been interviewed several times. Some have been interviewed, (in the case of the BBC twice) by reporters. How many may have sold their accounts to newspapers? What pressures would be put upon them to perk things up a bit? Perhaps the court cases against other BBC staff and the celebrities who are living will show the quality of evidence. Certainly they have already learned that any interaction you have, particularly sexual interaction, and particularly if you are male, can come back to haunt you, ten, twenty, thirty, forty years later.
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There may be a technical problem in that the CPS did not exist before about 1992, but I am sure that Ms Dux will be preparing the litigation even as we speak. As far as I can tell very few people made allegations while Jimmy Saville was alive and these allegations were investigated. It is not clear why matters did not go further, but I have seen no evidence of a cover up; perhaps you have got evidence of this? My guess would be that in relation to the Surrey investigation, the CPS did not think the accusers would stand scrutiny in the courts, and their judgment may have been right.Here we have another interesting fact, namely the ex-police officer who undertook the original expossee was an ex-member of the Surrey police force at the time of the Saville investigation. He also happens to own a consultancy service for child protection matters, which no doubt will make quite a lot of money from advising celebreties, agents, and agencies that work with children, on child protection matters. His web-site is pretty professional. Nothing wrong with this of course, but it leaves the feeling that I do not really understand his motives or indeed how he obtained his information.
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Plenty of evidence of a cover-up. Google ‘West Yorkshire Police’ and ‘Friday Morning Club’.
In his autobiography, Savile himself says the only reason he wasn’t prosecuted was because he’d ‘take half the station with me’.
I’m going to be doing more posts about this so stay tuned.
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Blimey Bookworm – you say “the evidence I have seen is not convincing”? There are nearly 500 separate people accusing Savile of sex crimes. How much bloody evidence do you need?
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you could start with the censored thatcher savile letters.
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i think the hysterical reaction to tom Watsons question proves that somethings being covered up
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Something that would stand up in court – which if you note what I have said, if we have already had a trail behind closed doors, why not a trail in court? Or can we dispense with trails completely? let us just adopt a position that when a man is accused of rape, as some of the other celebrities have been, or child abuse, that he is simply guilty and not have a trail at all. Both the DPP and the CPS have taken many people to court and those cases have collapsed. otherrs have gone to prison for many years, then the cases have collapsed. the common denominator berhind many of these judicial disasters is not so much the police or indeed anyone else concocting or manipulating evidence, though this has happened; but rather the police attempting to assuage public opinion. in this case the police and the CPS are shooting fish in a barrel; in that the alleged perpetrator, (and I have nowhere said that he is innocent, but simply that he has been found guilty without due process), has not been given the opportunity to present a defence.
I have little sympathy for Julian Assange, and I do not believe his line that he does not want to stand trial in Sweden because he fears extradition to the USA; but if Swedish law is modelled on the Code Napoleon, which I think it might be, (I have searched sites on Swedish law but have not come up with a definitive answer), then he would have to prove himself innocent of rape, and in Sweden there are many kinds and levels of rape (interestingly did the BBC and others make a huge fuss when Kenneth Clarke said this). Think on that – how would anyone on this site prove that they had not done something? In effect there is a danger that at least in relation to sexual matters that the Saville case will result in the same position.
Child Care professionals have been rightly criticised for not giving creedence to allegations made by children and vulnerable adults in the 1950, 1960, and 1970’s; they have also been rightly criticised for assuming all allegations are true in the 1980 and early 1990’s.Interestingly I note Satanic abuse has been raised in relation to Jimmy saville by someone selling their story to the Express. The last time Satanic abuse raised its head was in Rochdale in the early 1990’s, and it arose because an interdenominational church group consisting of senior police officers, senior social workers and a paediatrician or two believed there was such a thing. This ‘witch-hunt’ snowballed and snowballed, until the evidence cdollapsed, and a significant number of children had to be returned to their parents. A similar process happened in relation to ‘anal dilatation’ in Cleveland, where about 450 children had to be returned to their parents, (many were eventually taken into care for other reasons). Over the next few weeks increasingly incredible and sensationalistic tales will be circulated in the presss. Who knows some may be true, but will they be credible?
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In relation to Mr Whatson, he has established that Labour will fight the dirtiest electoral campaign in history in 2015; looking at the internet it may be a fight he will lose, as there seems to be plenty of ammunition that can be used against Labour. If Mr Whatson has evidence that a paedophile ring influenced or controlled the Conservative goverment of the 1980’sa he should present it in a way which can be disected and challenged; instead he cowers behind parliamentary privalege. I have on six occassions invited him to actually clearly state his allegation; (he backs away every time he is challenged), but have not had the courtesy of a response, but hey i am only an elector.
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Try googling Greville Janner. Google have taken search results about him down. They are unsurprisingly about Janner, Frank Beck and Paul Winston.But who made the cease & desist notice to Google.
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Ah now this is very odd. You need to check out the sites refered to above, particularly CHRIS. I doubt this has been taken down, but I will check. Frank Beck was a very powerful man, and his case was covered extensively, not just by the mainstream press, but more importantly by the social work press. Mr Beck supervised several homes in Leicestershire, and had several allegations made against him, which were in one way or another supressed by his line manager, who was a female Deputy Director of the same LA. Now Mr Beck is almost the only person in public life which CHRIS does not consider to be a paedophile, blaming his crimes instead on Greville Janner. This is of course possible – the site claims that Frank Beck banned Greville Janner from access to the children’s homes. I do not know how an officer of the LA could in fact do this, and if they did, I do not know how we would find out about this in 2005, and not in 1990. I also do not know how the dozens of children, and indeed half a dozen or so whistle-blowers some of whom were sacked by the above mentioned Deputy Director, could get it so wrong. The case is famous, or perhaps infamous because of the use of regressive therapy in the homes run by Frank Beck. Regressive therapy requires taking adults or children back to infancy and going through the developmental stages – it allows or perhaps requires a lot of touching, and this in turn would give the opportunity for abuse. Frank Beck died, if my memory serves me right of a heart attack. David Icke and CHRIS think he was assassinated by a killer in the pay of ‘them’, whoever they are. He would have been in his mid to late 50’s when he died. In the social work press there was plenty of evidence that other staff were involved, and considerable horror that the LA went to such lengths, including the dismissal of several whistle-blowers, to cover up for him. There was no suggestion at the time of any celebrity involvement. Given the therapeutic context within which this abuse occured there is more likely to be some connextion with Paedophile Exchange network. As almost everyone involved, other than the victims are dead it is difficult to see why anyone would have an interest in taking it off the internet, when it has been there for a decade, unless of course the police have reopened this line of enquiry, in which case they may have perfectly reasonable reasons for doing so, (removing information which might interfere with the trial of other members of staff who might not have been charged at the time, but concerning which either existing or new evidence is being reassessed?). Possibly the police will ‘investigate’ Greville Janner and find him guilty, after all we do not need trials anymore, and I would have the same misgivings about this as I do in relation to the dead celebs. I have no problem with living celebs, politicians, public sector employees, or ex-public sector employees being given a fair trial and being found innocent or guilty and appropriately punished.
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Paul Winston should have made a statement to the police about Greville Janner.That is why the case was not investigated more than it should have. The unnamed woman at Frank Beck’s trial stated that she heard Beck telling Winston that he wasn’t going to see Greville Janner again and she was giving evidence against Beck.I don’t believe the political will is there to get Janner arrested at 5AM one morning. Looking at what is on the net, it looks like there is a case against Lord Greville Janner.Maybe he got his lawyer to have those search results taken down from Google but that was a mistake. They put a note at the bottom of the page that someone made a legal complaint! The other related searches at the bottom of the page scream ‘nonce’ at the viewer. Janner is usually a cool customer and just slipped up getting pages taken down in January.
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Related google searches to Greville Janner:
greville janner paedo
greville janner jimmy saville
greville janner allegations
greville janner paedophile
greville janner scandal
greville janner paul winston
greville janner frank beck
It doesn’t look good for him does it?
Imagine googling your own name and seeing all that.
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If you read my response you will notice I have already – nor did I find any great impediment in doing so. This case was covered extensively by the Social Work press in the days before the internet. From that I would suggest that Mr Beck had been subject to numerous complaints, many from children and members of staff, and that the full weight of the LA fell upon the whistle-blowers, as is usually the case. The matter was certainly covered up, primarily by the Deputy Director of the LA, almost certainly to protect the LA. The Beck case broke about the same time as the insurance company that underwrote this sort of risk to all the LAs went bankrupt – since then such cases are settled from revenue, and every local authority would fully understand the financial consequences involved. Interestingly a few weeks ago the Independent ran a story on this subject, looking with askance upon the financial impact of the Saville affair on the charities and NHS trusts involved. Even the liberal left are beginning to realise that allegations of abuse are big business, from which the solicitors, Ms Dux for instance benefit enormously.
If we are to believe some parts of the internet Frank Beck was entirely innocent, even tho9ugh proved guilty. You may recall my stance upon this has been the same all along – if there is any evidence then let us have a few trials pleases for Mr Janner – let those who have complaints to make, make them, let the police investigate them, and if there is evidence put him on trial. You may note however that Mr Pride thinks this will not happen, because he believes possibly rightly, that the police are only looking for Conservatives, and if my memory is right Greville Janner was a Labour MP. By Mr pride’s reasoning Greville is safe whether he is innocent or guilty.So you may have to live with that.
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Well it rather proves what I said – there would seem to be no evidence that Google are censoring references to Mr Jannar or indeed anyone else concerning paedophilia Now of course what you need to ask yourself, is if some one was to do this to you, and a list of such headings came up if you googled yourself, how would it look for you?
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Yes I believe Frank beck is guilty of abuse.They gave him a bigger sentence because he fought the charges. He also started to believed his own b*llsh*t. But what he said about Greville Janner and Paul Winston has a ring of truth to it. Taking a shine to a schoolkid who by coincidence went on to be a rent boy looks bad for Janner.The other witness at the trial who overheard Beck telling Winston he wasn’t going to see Janner again backs up the evidence given by Winston.Type Greville Janner into google and you will see a note at the bottom of the page stating that some pages have been removed due to a legal request.That was done in January .
And it’s pages about Janner, Winston, paedophilia etc.Who sent the cease & desist notice to Google?
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But the onus is on you – you claim you have the evidence – give it to the police. I do not have any evidence, least of all against Greville Janner. When I did, concerning abuse amounting to murder in old people’s homes – I did, and I suffered for years for doing so. I had the integrity to do this, so should you. If your evidence is stuff you have picked up on the internet – I would be very careful – it is not always what it seems. if it is something you have witnessed or experienced you have a moral duty to give your evidence.
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bookwormbc – I would like to know more about the evidence you had about abuse at old people’s homes. And why you suffered after reporting it. If you want – you can email me.
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Firstly just to say that the great forgotten institutional abuse of the fifthies, sixties and seventies was of the elderly. It is forgotten because of course they are all dead. I will also say that what is forgotten with regard to children is the widespread cruelty which was practiced. For too many commentators are obsessed by the sex abuse – which I believe tells us more about them than it does about the victims or indeed the nature of institutional abuse at that time. Even in north Wales, and even in Frank Becks Leicestershire, and certainly in Staffordshire, (remember pin down?) there was far more physical cruelty than sexual abuse, although no doubt on many occassions victims suffered both.
I also think, I do not consider niavely, that the evolution of inspection systems independent of the LA, and the fact that most residential systems are not owned and staffed by the LAs has resulted in an ability to deal with these matters. We are not superior human beings to those who lived in 1960 – they also knew that having sex with children was wrong, that beating up elderly people was wrong, that using drugs to subdue them was wrong, but the system was controled, managed, monitored by the state. In those days almost all social care, and almost all social work was provided by the LAs. If you offended one Director of Social Services, you offended them all. One advantage of the atomisation of the system is that if you do break ranks it is still usually possible to find work, (I accept there are also serious disadvantages to this atomisation, mainly in the provision of uniform services).
Not only are all the victims dead, but so are practically all the perpetrators, and as I do not believe people should be put on trial by the internet, whether dead or alive, I do not propose to identify anyone.
The problem: I was the Deputy to a married couple; she was a ‘nurse’ he had worked as para-medical. In those days residential meant residential – I lived in one attached flat, they opposite me in the other. He was also a NALGO convenor, in effect he was my union representative. They both had significant problems with alcohol. This was fully understood by the senior managment of the LA many of whom drank in the local pub with them and all of them if asked only about this issue would have said he had drink problems. This did not lead them to query their role as carers for vulnerable people. He also had one of the ‘manual’ staff as a mistress.
There were physical assaults – on First World War veteran, who was about 89, was punched by the male manager all the way accross the foyer of the residential unit. This gentleman soon afterwards dropped a teapot full of boiling water in his lap, this seared his private parts and he died in agony soon afterwards. This will seem quite strange now, but in those days residential units did have a high percentage of people who could use tea-pots etc, now it is very different.
There was also things done ‘for their own good’; in particular an old lady was made to walk unsupported on her frame from the furthest room to the lounge – about sixty yards. Staff requested that she be allowed to use a wheelchair, and were overruled. She fell and fractured her femur and died shortly afterwards in hospital.
More important than this was however the overdosing of a large number of people by the use of two drugs, Largactil and Serenace, also known as Haloperidol. Both were prescribed in liquid form and both were poured in larger than prescribed doses into tea and other liquids. In the case of Serenace a dose should have been 1 or 2 drops, the female manager who did most of the dispensing would regulary squirt twenty to thirty drops. With the Largactil the dose would have been 5mls or ten mls, she normaly filled the container, that is thirty mls or more. Neither drug would normally be used on elderly people now – and there are warnings with Serenace not to prescribe to elderly people because it reduces muscle tone, that is it weakens the muscles ability to help you breath, swallow etc. It does this because it has an anti-Parkinson effect. In those days a GP could and in this case did both prescribe and renew the prescriptions. More to follow.
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