This is the fifth installment of Bill Donohue’s report on the BBC sexual abuse scandal and its implications for the New York Times:
It was reported over the weekend that BBC celebrity Jimmy Savile was so sick that he sexually assaulted his own niece on two occasions. Worse, her grandmother knew it all along but kept her mouth shut: grandma’s brother, Jimmy, made sure she had a very comfortable lifestyle.
Savile’s exploits were no secret. Here are a few examples. In 1976, a 9-year-old boy was molested by Savile in his dressing room, and was caught in the act by a man who simply said, “Oops,” and shut the door. At about the same time, a teenage girl, whose father was a pedophile friend of Savile’s, was abused by Savile. In 1985, Savile recorded a BBC song where he bragged about becoming a dancehall boss so he could meet girls. And no one thought this odd? In 1992, after a 7-year-old boy was asked by Savile to take off his clothes in a performance with male strippers, a complaint was filed with the authorities, but nothing came of it. Indeed, the BBC called the episode “a lighthearted item.”
In 2000, Savile was finally accused in a TV documentary of pedophilia. But he got away with it. Astonishingly, Savile actually said he intentionally lied about not liking kids because it was a convenient decoy. “It’s easier for me as a single man to say I don’t like children because it puts a lot of salacious tabloid people off the hunt,” he admitted.
George Entwistle, the director-general of the BBC who succeeded Mark Thompson, wants us to believe that he was clueless about Savile’s predatory behavior. “Jimmy Savile was regarded by a great many people as odd, a bit peculiar and that was something I was aware some people believed,” he recently said. Just peculiar? Entwistle is now refusing to talk to the media, and Thompson, who is set to become the new president and CEO of the New York Times, isn’t exactly making himself available for comment either. Look for this to soon change. More to come later today.
