I know Blizz. Seems like the nation was groomed en masse to not think the worst of such a fine, upstanding man that did so much for charidee (but didn't want to talk too much about it). The alleged victims lost the power of credibility to a bunch of highly organised pervs!

 

Think they're being listened to and taken seriously now though, there'll always be some who are cynical and question their motives for speaking out after Savile's death, but I think that's a minority view now.

From what Janet Street Porter says, it was the tip of the iceberg in tv land.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/v...the-bbc-8200645.html

 

I've completely changed my view on Saville. At first it was rumour plus the fact he looked creepy, which isn't enough to condemn someone i.m.o. And I was duped by his good works, hard early life, and inherent eccentricity, too.

 

I also remembered Matthew Kelly who was wrongly, it turned out, accused of abuse. Also the actor Wilfred Bramble [old man Steptoe] who I'd always assumed was a paedophile after vague rumours I heard, and who looked like the stereotypical dirty old man. Turned out he wasn't, he was gay and arrested for cruising.

 

But from all these separate accounts, JS was guilty, guilty as hell. 

 

Exactly, Pengy. 

Seems it was endemic, but women who heard rumours, or even suffered sexual harrassment or molestation, are getting most of the blame. 

I don't blame any of the girls, but women like Liz Kershaw who were supposed to be edgy and strong should have made more of a noise. Yes the general attitude was carp and, yes, she might have lost her job, but it might have helped other women and eventually those young girls to come forward.

Look at the response she got, when she did complain, and Janet Street-Porter got slapped by her mother, when she did. 

 

I just think putting any blame on the victims, whether they are supposed to be 'edgy and strong', or not, is a huge part of the problem and actually stops victims coming forward.

All this talk about people spilling the beans - didn't do Ulrika a lot of good. She's had scorn poured on her for years. Very similar sort of situation by the sound of it. She didn't speak out at the time because ...................it just wasn't done. We live in a different world nowadays.

So true Sooz sadly.

very good point Soozy 

Good point however it is a completely different situation, Ulrika,and JL were both over the age of consent, both were adults. Even though Ulrika went on a date, and it went horribly wrong, I am not condoning John Leslie one bit here..Rumours were rife in the 80's regarding Ulrika's swift rise to fame on Tv:AM,(I'm not going to repeat them here, as it serves no purpose)

 

People in the industry gave her a hard time, as well as viewers who were fans of JL at the time.  She has never managed to shake off the negative gossip about her regarding this, hence why she faced a shit storm when she exposed JL.

 

Saville was a predator of children, he abused his power repeatedly, he preyed on the vulnerable, and people with no means of standing up to him..By the the time Ulrika had written her book she was a successful woman who was in a stronger position to speak up..Those kids could not stand up or speak for themselves, they had no advocates, and what is more, Saville flaunted his behaviour repeatedly in front of colleagues, with no fear of reprimand, The BBC, as well as Saville have a lot to answer for..

Are you not asking yourself why women don't speak out? Just look at these forums and others like it. Ulrika was vilified and scorn poured upon her. Other women came forward - no conviction. People say that JL's career was finished by the whole thing - if he was truly innocent do you not ask yourself why those in the industry didn't back him to the hilt and offer him work.

 

How do you think those women and Ulrika feel after plucking up the courage to come forward and having their intimate details dissected and the conviction failed?

 

It hardly instils confidence and encourages women - that's simply my take on it.

 

I fully accept that child abuse is thoroughly abhorrent but I do think when people are talking about a 'culture' of abuse it is very relevant.

Are you refeering to me? I'm not sure, but as I have said before, yes Ulrika had a bad time when she did speak out, but it does not excuse for one minute the ordeal she went through...

 

Unfortunately for her, having a "casual" attutude to sex, probably didn't help her cause. if you remember she even made a documentary on CH4 about being a sex addict..My point regarding her is she was judged on her private life, more than the facts of the event...I hope the women who accuse JS, are not faced with similar judgments..For the record I judged Ulrika purely on her behaviour when she was in the BB house, I didn't like her then and still don't, my dislike of her has absolutely nothing to do with what happened  to her, she probably had ghosts that she felt she had to lay to rest, by writing it in a book, it may have helped her come to terms with what JL did, in the same way these women who were abused by JS, can only speak out, now he is dead.

The trouble is, society (for want of a better description) expects their victims to be whiter than white.  Where children are concerned this is an easy expectation except they are then ignored because they are speaking out against upstanding or famous people.  Generally, in those days, upstanding pillars of the community weren't viewed with suspicion - nor were the famous ones.  And, even if they were, they invariably had too much clout and friends in high places.

Boothby was a typical example.

 

A point I did want to make is that it's not easy to speak out when you are against powerful people.  They have clout.  Perhaps many have thought they'd no chance and therefore all they had to hold on to was maintaining their dignity.  The loss of a job AND to have ones reputation slaughtered is possibly too much to bear.

It may sound feeble, but it's perhaps all they had to cling to to keep themselves sane.

Very true Cosmo, and it makes me despise Saville more for preying on the most vulnerable in our society..He is scum..

  I'm sure he'd know exactly how to play it to his advantage.

 

I'm not sure what help that cretin Gary Glitter will be.

Either way, he's a shit witness and not one I'd put any belief in.

Just as a bit of an aside ... hundreds of years ago hubby came across a poster of Gary Glitter advertising something to do with British Rail. He said he would keep it in pristine condition as it would be worth something in years to come.

 

Hmmmmm

Exactly Cosmo, what I want to see is an independent inquiry set up, to investigate, the high powered people at the BBC, who must have heard the rumours, but rather than investigate or report JS to the police, covered it up for the sake of Saturday night ratings....

The thing is, well at least I feel, even if Saville was reported to the police, would they have actually done anything?  I don't think they would.  I have suspicions that reports were made and brushed under the carpet.  Some reporter who wrote a biography on Saville has alluded to the fact that Saville made 'friends' with the chief of police where ever he happened to be living be it Leeds, Scarborough or Scotland, just to make sure if any rumours did reach their ears, they wouldn't be acted on. 

 

I really do feel there is more about this whole episode that will come tumbling out 

That just makes me feel even more sad for those women, because basically JS made sure all angles were "covered" so there would be no chance of him being exposed, what a truly awful despicable man he was..

I have to say he could be biased as he's a journalist looking for a story but apparently, he's had access to JS from 1992 to write this biography and to be honest with what others are saying about JS it wouldn't surprise me to find there's more than a grain of truth in it - it's not like the police haven't colluded before 

"it's not like the police haven't colluded before"

 

Exactly Pengy, it just makes me sick to my stomach..

Interesting read(DS)

http://www.davidicke.com/articles/st...ference-esther

It's a vast, intricate web and as Soozy said way earlier, Saville's one brick in a big wall.  Look how long it took to get Johnathan King convicted, for instance.

 

That's presuming you're not up against hostile witnesses and a shed load of cover ups in the first place.

Thanks for that Erin, very interesting..

Absolutely, Sooz.

 

Ulrika didn't even feel able to name him. Matthew Wright let the cat out of the bag and has been trying to defend him ever since. Even the other day, he was implying that poor JL has had his career ruined by malicious women coming forward with stories. It is so obvious that his reputation was well known in the industry and that once it was out in the open, people suddenly decided it was too risky to employ him. I'll never forget seeing the blood drain from his face, when Fern Britten announced on This Morning that Ulrika's book had been released and she asked him if he was in it. Then we had the pretty, innocent nurse girlfriend, Abi Titmus, in court, fluttering her eyelashes at the judge and standing by her man, before releasing a sex tape, after his aquittal, of course. 

 

30 woman came forward to name and shame him, and he still claims that they did it for money, or because he was cold and didn't phone them after he'd used them for sex. He's guilty as sin, imo, and he got away with it, with or without his media career. 

I took one look at the Icke page and wrote him off as a loon. However one can't help but think that some sinister central decision making body will be happy if it appears that Savile carried out all abuse, and that all abuse took place in the BBC.

Jeremy Vine on R2 is talking about this again and is having a right old ding dong with Esther Rantzen over why even though she had heard the rumours she had not spoken out.  

 

He also mentioned a case whereby JS had paid a little girls heart op and afterwards when a paper approached them to do a piece on it, they parents had refused because of what was expected of the little girl by JS to 'earn' her operation. (I just tuned in when they were talking about this so I don't know where the story came from)

^^^^  Oooh er

if that's true Cinds that's awful!! preying on sick children?

Yep - I have to say when I watched him doing his 'porter' stint after seeing all the other revelations on that programme I did start wondering about his motives there too, but thought I was just being very cynical.  Now I'm not so sure I was.

Like I said Jen I didn't hear where they said the story had come from & can't find any references.

Sounds like he 'helped himself' to many vulnerable patients. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/n...he-saw-jimmy-1363461

 

jeeze, blizz.. it just gets worse 

And I feel more and more anger for those poor innocent girls..

Esther should be taken to task, ...It's one thing setting up Childline, and I commend her for it, but she knew about Saville, why in God's name didn't she speak out?

I haven't heard the broadcast, but if she had just heard rumours, like seemingly hundreds of others, what could she have done, really? Seems to me that flinging the blame around is a huge distraction, when we now know that there were actual eye-witnesses, accomplices, friends in the police force etc. who did nothing.

 

Maybe, like many, many others, she heard the rumours, but thought that people were just suspicious of him, because he was single, eccentric and liked working with youngsters. On the documentary, she said that she wanted to watch it with an open mind, but had been convinced by the testimonies of the victims. I would say that confirms that she was in no way sure of what he had been doing, at the time.