Jimmy Savile was “one of the UK’s most prolific known sexual predators” who abused children as young as eight across six decades, a chilling report concluded.
The disgraced television presenter used his celebrity to “hide in plain sight” - but now has 214 criminal offences recorded against his name in 28 police forces, including 34 rapes.
Presenting the findings of the Metropolitan Police and NSPCC, detective superintendent David Gray said: “The sheer scale and the severity of his offending is appalling.”
And in a separate report, Britain’s top prosecutor Keir Starmer admitted Savile could have been charged for offences against at least three victims before his death in 2011.
Laying bare the full scale of his depravity, it emerged Savile sexually abused a dying teenager at a hospice, one of 14 medical sites he used to prey on his victims.
His abuse spanned from 1955 to 2009, covering his entire career at the BBC, and included sexually touching a teenage girl at the final recording of Top Of The Pops in 2006.
But the joint report stopped short of pinning any blame on other institutions that may have “missed past opportunities” to stop Savile.
A total of 450 people have come forward alleging sexual abuse against Savile since October - of whom 73% were children at the time of the offences. The peak of his offending was between 1966 and 1976, when he was aged between 40 and 50, the report said.
Savile abused patients at Leeds General Infirmary, where he worked between 1965 and 1995, and committed offences at Stoke Mandeville Hospital between 1965 and 1988. He attacked children at children’s home Duncroft School between 1970 and 1978 and also committed 14 offences at schools across the country, partly when children had written to him as part of Jim’ll Fix It. And the report disclosed that Savile was accused of sexually touching a teenage hospice patient, aged 13 to 16.
Commander Peter Spindler, who is leading the national investigation into Savile’s abuse, 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. They have been listened to and taken seriously.”
Comments