UNITED KINGDOM
The Telegraph
Jimmy Savile’s depraved sexual activities went unchallenged for decades – but the clues were there for all to see in his long-forgotten autobiography
By Neil Tweedie, and Tom Rowley
8:30PM BST 26 Oct 2012
It was the nearest the pop world gets to a royal funeral: the vast cortege processing through crowded streets, the Royal Marine pallbearer party, white-gloved in ceremonial uniform, and, fittingly for a national treasure, a golden coffin. James Wilson Vincent Savile, Knight Bachelor, Papal Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great, was as loud in death as life.
“His story was an epic of giving. Giving of time, giving of talent, giving of treasure,” Monsignor Kieran Heskin informed the congregation. “Sir Jimmy Savile can face eternal life with confidence.”
God would undoubtedly “Fix it”.
Last week, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, wrote to the Holy See asking for the posthumous removal of Savile’s papal knighthood. Like other organisations, the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is attempting to rid itself of the stain of association with its son, the late disc jockey and television presenter. The two charities set up in his name are to be closed down and their funds dispersed anonymously.
The number of people alleging sexual abuse at the hands of Jimmy Savile from the 1960s to the 1980s now stands at some 300. The vast majority were children at the time, young teenagers, girls and boys, groped, fondled and raped. History is being hastily rewritten. A year on, and the pop pomp of that funeral in Savile’s native Leeds appears worse than a bad joke, a travesty. The DJ who flaunted his friendship with the Royal family, who gave marital advice to Charles and Diana, who spent Christmas at Chequers with Margaret Thatcher, who posed for a photograph with Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was, in all probability, one of Britain’s most prolific paedophiles. He was a man who could barely contain his perverse sexual appetites, even to the extent of assaulting a young woman on the terrace of the House of Commons in full view of MPs. He proudly related such exploits in his 1974 autobiography, yet managed to escape retribution until his death in October last year at the age of 84.
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