Are these allegations true?

Or are they exaggerated?

Are we, as a species, unable to ask this question? The media rule appears to be - believe any and all claims of sexual abuse.

Why? Because, in most cases, it's a private event; one person's word against another's.

Of course, when one party is dead, it's impossible to prove it either way.

But shouldn't our assumptions be - 50/50. Might be true; might not.

The famous police/CPS and (thanks to Michael Howard) legal proof is... similar accusations are evidence.

This relies on the witnesses not having met and compared details.

It does not take into account THIRD PARTIES - police officers or journalists - being the conduit between witnesses. In most cases, with honest and honourable police or hacks, this does not influence statements. But if there's a motive ("a good story"... "promotion due to high profile convictions"... "targets"...) such assistance (often unintentional) exists.

Why would people lie or inflate stories? Money, compensation, greed, a desire for sympathy, attention, revenge, "victim empathy", delusion - there are dozens of very genuine reasons.

The answer? Lie detectors? Not much use if the victim clearly has convinced herself or himself that their imaginary abuse actually happened.

It's not the false accusers I find disturbing. It's the outsiders simply accepting their claims. When I see John Whittingdale MP (a man I know personally to be honest and decent) talk about "revelations" as opposed to "allegations", I realise... even considering the other solution is apparently impossible for most people.

www.kingofhits.co.uk/index.php/Attitudes.../BBC/Mail/Media.html

If enough people make an accusation and those people come from different backgrounds and are unknown to each other then the probability that their stements are correct will be significantly greater than 50/50. The certainly of truth of any allegation will vary case by case but in the case of Jimmy Savile I think it is now 99.99% certain that he had unlawful sexual contact with underage girls. Without relevant forensic evidence or confirmation from Savile himself there will have to remain an element of doubt but that doubt in the case of Jimmy Savile is now very very small indeed. You are right of course that there are alternative explanations. This is the case with every argument but just because there is a counter argument doesn't mean that it should be given equal weight to the most logical and correct conclusion.

One thing that doesn't get much mention is the culture of the times. Many individuals in the music world had sex with underage girls and this behaviour was witnessed and accepted by many eg roadies, admin workers, friends, record company staff, media personnel etc. Sometimes the fact was openly reported (Jimmy Page) other times it was widely talked about (Jimmy Savile). The main reason why nothing was done at the time by either the girls or the witnesses was that the sexual contact was usually encouraged by the girl so it was assumed that the girl was always a willing partner.

You mention that you are concerned about the comments of John Whittingdale are you also concerned about the position of Paul Gambaccini who appeared in last night's programme and has previously made statements about Jimmy Savile? In a separate post you note that you had diner with Paul and Stephen Fry just over a week ago. Did both these media insiders share you assessment that the probability of Jimmy Savile's guilt is 50/50? Paul Gambaccini has just been on Radio Five this morning talking about his targeting of under age, sub normal girls from various institutions. He said he had an office next door to the Savile's Travels production team and admitted he often heard stories from them about Savile's behaviour, he even openly talked about the necrophilia allegations. When asked why he didn't do anything about the knowledge he had about Savile he responded by saying "How do you tell something to somebody who already knows that information?" Paul didn't seem to have any doubts.

Yes BB, Gambo and I do not agree on this; but whereas he's sure (as are you), I think there's an element of truth and an element of exaggeration.

I'm afraid I took him to task over his belief that tabloids would block publication of "a great story" because charities might suffer. But then, I know the press better than Gambo does.

I agree with your assumption that most people, like you, believe in the total objectivity and honesty of police and journalists. And I'm sure that if the hacks involved in the Savile exposure had suspected for a second that "victims" were less than 100% accurate in their memories, they would not have proceeded.

I just think they wanted to believe very believable witnesses because it's a great story.

And I think it's possible that many "girls" were willing and over 16. But who is to know?

Just like the necrophilia allegations. He may well have abused corpses. I never believed it because I thought someone, somewhere would have seen something (and, certainly, will now reveal they did so - which, I'm afraid, makes me less rather than more certain).

An example - if I were inflating an incident, I'd claim I saw further abuses (for instance, in dressing rooms); I'd just make sure any "victims" were either impossible to identify, dead or willing to give evidence too. For a fee.

Perhaps I'm too cynical.

Your other point - everyone was "at it" is quite correct. Although, again, most sensible stars tried to be sure that partners were above the age of consent and did so willingly (unless, of course, they were male, in which case all were illegal in the 60s).

The thing is though, the Panorama prog, ran the abandoned Newsnight story with that Karin, person...But her story is slightly different to the one, she told on ITV.

They say she had just overcome Cancer, when it were made. Though failed to mention, where her Cancer was...this would of been of great interest, to the plot.

I noticed they homed in on Freddie Starr, but his name, was not mentioned on the BBC prog.

It seems that Karin was present in 3 recordings of "Clunk Click". What I don't get are her stories.

She claims she gave JS a BJ for tickets to shows. Then comes the Dressing Room caper (differing from the ITV story). I believe on ITV, she said that both JS & GG were having sex with a girl each. On the BBC, she says she saw GG having it, with a girl & JS was standing there, laughing...To which, she said "I never did like Glitter, he gave me the creeps & all he was interested in was sex". That maybe so, but if she didn't like him, why did she go to the show? Something there doesn't add up.

Then we get the "proposition" of this "celebrity" who smelt of fags & drink.

I don't like Gambo personally, as he came to the UK in 1970 & later decides, he'd help change UK chart history, by using a chart for 60s purposes, that was largely ignored at the time. And he always seems to be wheeled out, when someone dies or there is a doc about pop on...then he's not exactly bright on his comments on pop!

I certainly don't believe in "the total objectivity and honesty of police and journalists" and there are quite a few examples of the police and journalists not being completely objective or honest.

What I do believe, and believe strongly is that there is no widespread collusion within journalism that is moving this story in one direction. There are many publication and forums available to anyone who wants to put forward an opposite view but very few people are putting forward arguments for the defence. There are as many journalists who actively seek to prove wide held opinions to be wrong as there are journalists who follow the pack.

I admire that you are standing up and taking the minority position but the cynical observer will believe you are only doing so because it suits your purpose and you own historical legal issues. A lot of posters on this board also seem to believe that just because there are examples of injustice then the burden of proof must be absolute. I apply the principle of reasonable doubt and in the case of Jimmy Savile I do believe that he had unlawful sexual contact with underage girls and did so on multiple occasions.

However, I not believe that the current amount of media coverage of the situation is appropriate to the crime that was committed nor do I believe that crime that was committed was considered as serious in the 60's & 70's as it is today.

I think many people (like Gambo) are well and truly putting their foot in it.

BB also makes leaps of logic that because a percentage of people make a claim therefore it is true.
History tells us otherwise and indeed, recent history proves otherwise (Iraq- WMD?)

BB also brings up a very obvious matter that in the period many were knocking each other off....many girls (and boys) were willing participants (raging hormones) but sadly modern history, and most especially modern British history (which includes that of it's former colonies) has a weird pre-occupation ( and I believe it's a rather sick one) of turning youthful indiscretions into lifelong shame...now transmuted into a money machine ('victims' child "protection" agencies that hoover up millions in funding. ex-coppers etc etc)

That "protection" side of all this sickens me to the stomach as I know too many genuine child helpers mainly in third world countries and the ME that never see any of the sort of money that scoundrels like the ex-plod promoting this gets, but struggle on nethertheless.

I know one woman in Afghanistan that could use one day's pay of the disgusting Willams whatever his name is, to help Afghani orphaned kids (parents killed by us)to feed them for 6 months.

Daily they would save more children than these creeps would in a year.

I believe this whole Savile matter will either fizzle out or will claim victims..many in the 'protection' industry and so on.

I also see a change in the usually demented comments in tabloids like the Daily Mail..such as where were the parents in all this abuse ??

It is Salem Witch Hunt time and I reckon the media will either do itself in or gradually drop the whole thing.

I still think many like Gambo, Rantzen et al will rue the day they opened their mouths, and indeed if what they say is true..they are as guilty as sin.

All of this outrage over such behaviour, supposedly regardless of where it happened, and yet no investigation into, say, John Junor's antics while he was at a certain tabloid newspaper, and STILL not the slightest questioning about ITV companies during the same era. Funny, as Pete and Dud would have said, funny.

And dear old Southern Television, that bastion of broadcasting conservatism in the 50s, 60s and 70s, lost it's franchise for precisely that reason - that it was conservative, perhaps a little dull, but still providing a service to an area that no other franchise in the South bettered programme wise.

On seeing the extracts from the ditched Newsnight piece, I can see why they edited finally decided to ditch it. There is no evidence in the Newsnight piece at all. What you seem to have is some half shot woman, that has fighted some form of cancer (successfully), but any evidence of "the gitl" Glitter apparently had sex with, is not forthcoming.

I can neither see what George Entwhistle, has to answer too. He's done no wrong here & how can he be expected to answer to "apparent events" that happened 40 odd years ago.

Anything to do with JS is firmly in the past..."Now then, now then 40 years ago this week, at #1 in the charts"....tiring stuff, ain't it?!

Panarama was very interesting. I also take the view of others in this thread that there probably is some truth in it, but I also believe that probably half the claims that are being made are false or exaggerated. I am also uncomfortable with the fact that he is dead and cannot defend himself etc, etc. It was interesting also for the fact that they had obviously got hold of the glowing JS tribute programme they showed around last Christmas and re-edited all the old pictures and film clips of him (particularly the one of him poncing around Leeds in his Corniche) around the now vitriolic claims and interviews of various people.
I wonder when someone is going to put his hand up regarding abuse at Granada, ITC, LWT etc. If it happened, it can't have just happened at the BBC.

A lot of my family are from Leeds and they didn't know or hadn't heard any rumours about this, as I've said before. They said that at the worst he was an irritant, particularly in the hospitals, where the Doctors and Nurses wanted to treat the sick and he was walking about being, well being Jimmy Savile. I did hear one story about a patient who told him to 'piss off' after being told a crude joke but that's as much as it went - and telling crude jokes doesn't make you a 'paedo' or a necrophiliac or anything.

JK, er once more, not 'The Species'/Homo Sapiens, but almost exclusively the Sex & Age Obsessed phoney-Anglophonia UK/US/CA/OZ/NZ/SA/IE with sensationalist/populist Mob Rule press-media.

Phoney-Anglophonia in totalitarian-tabloid deep denial that for years serious agencies UNICEF etc have shown that a VAST 92% of Serious Child Abuse is NON-Sex Serious Child Abuse, about which phoney-Anglophonia doesn't give a damn.

Check the rational humane sex-laws in civilised mainland modern-EU with no sensationised/populist press-media, yet rightly named by leading agencies UNICEF etc as 'WORLD BEST FOR CHILD WELLBEING'.

While coincidentally WITH a seriously populist/sensationalist Mob Rule press-media (for greed/ratings/profit not TRUE protection), phoney-Anglophonia PERVersely posing as 'Best', is rightly shamed 'WORST IN THE WEST FOR CHILD WELLBEING' - it's no damned coincidence !

LoL.

I think Gambacinni - aside from being far too keen to get his Joker-ised boatrace on every entertainment-related show - sees himself "aside" from not just Savile but the other (straight) DJ's, all of which after all may well have (by the law of averages) spent a few "Scottish Fivers" themselves back in the day. Did I blink and miss him appearing on the news to defend the absurd allegations thrown at John Peel? Or explaining how DLT wasn't just atypical of "The BBC" but of institutionalized sexism rife in every organisation in the UK in the 70s?

Last night's programme was marginally better than the ITV one - though that isn't saying much. Both were trite garbage.
As for the bit at the end "we've asked the BBC to comment and they've declined" - the BBC are refusing to talk to the BBC? What?
Have I fallen out of a tree and into Alice In fucking Wonderland?

This whole melee is an exercise in insulting my intelligence.

This is just it, isn't it?

He opened a Fete, attended by my Cousins & Sisters in 1973...A special school for the slightly backward. No stories came from that one.

where are the unwanted babies or terminations?

The Astrological Twin wrote:
where are the unwanted babies or terminations?

Well, the terminations aren't anywhere, but most of the unwanted babies are probably now working in Derry Street.

Foz wrote:

I wonder when someone is going to put his hand up regarding abuse at Granada, ITC, LWT etc. If it happened, it can't have just happened at the BBC.

I'm sure it did. On Christmas Day 1973 ITV screened a Carry On Christmas Special which featured a sketch involving Sid James playing a Santa in his Grotto, with Barbara Windsor a 13 year old schoolgirl (in uniform) sitting on his knee. Sid makes jokes about how big her boobs are, how 'knowing' the kids of today are etc. When she finally asks him 'what would you like to give me?', he winks at the camera and replies 'you're making it hard for me' - to which the studio audience erupts into knowing laughter, as did no doubt the 20 million people watching at home.

I'm not accusing Sid James or the Carry On cast of anything, but it just shows how ridiculous all this is to single out Savile or the BBC when attitudes were so different back then across the whole of society.

Anyway, as has been mentioned, there's a real danger this could get out of hand and backfire on the puritan interest groups who are promoting this insane hysteria. Like Gary Glitter, Jimmy Savile is a perfect pantomime paedo to put the sexual revolution on trial with, but it looks like this could extend to some real icons of the period. As Jonathan King says, we might have to end up with erasing the 60's and 70's from the cultural record. Either that or the media accepts they've been talking nonse sense.

Sorry...but Barbara Windsor was not 13 in 1973 LOL! She would of been 36 years old then (born in 1937)

Also id like to know why if your Bill Wyman your not a paedo (cos your a rockstar so its ok) but if your a DJ then your a vile pervert?

If Savile was such a monster when he died why wasnt there any porn found in any of his properties? Surely one hard drive had dreaddful necrophiliac snuff movies
with Jimmy going erererreereeee!!! and 60 years worth of porno.


strange that such a "predator" as Savile left not a single pornographic photo anywhere.


But .....maybe the other devil worshippers at the BBC went in on "orders from above" to clean up.


strange indeed.

ha ha!! It's a missing link this issue. If Gary Glitter and Jimmy Savile and others were having sex with all these girls for so long, where are the kids? There should be a DNA trail all over the place. I wonder who'll claim to be a love child of Gary Glitter just after he dies hoping to inherit his estate?