UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News
Dominic Casciani
Prosecutors have published detailed guidance on how to handle sex abuse allegations in the same week as Surrey police released transcripts of an interview with Jimmy Savile.
The new guidance comes down to a simple shift in thinking that can make a profound difference: trust, rather than doubt, what the victim is saying.
But would it have made a difference in the Savile scandal? Between 2007 and 2009 Surrey Police investigated allegations of sexual abuse by Savile at the Duncroft Approved School in Surrey.
Police eventually interviewed him at his office at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in which they put the allegations to him.
His first reaction was to deny anything and to blame the victims.
Savile: “That makes me 83 and proud that in 83 years I’ve never ever done anything wrong.”
Police: “OK.”
Savile: “That doesn’t mean to say that in my business you don’t get accused of just about everything because people are looking for a bit of blackmail or the papers are looking for a story…”
The evidence against Savile had come to the police slowly and, despite the misgivings of prosecutors, the detectives had pursued early leads and found other possible victims or witnesses.
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