Could some good come of the Savile scandal?

[SingingSilver]

I just read this in a Guardian article (hope I'm not breaking any rules by quoting?)

'If Savile benefited from the blind eye still turned to child abuse, he enjoyed too the curious protection granted to so many rapists: the refusal to believe the victims. When a patient at Broadmoor high-security hospital, whom Savile had repeatedly abused, threatened to report him, the DJ "laughed in her face, and said that nobody would believe her and he could do what he liked", according to Naomi Stanley, a former nurse at the institution. In that, the late TV "personality" was simply expressing out loud and explicitly what many rapists both think to themselves and quietly rely on.

And with good reason. This week the Metropolitan police's sex crime unit, Sapphire, announced a restructuring after a detective admitted 13 counts of misconduct, for failing to investigate 10 rapes and three sexual assault cases. Another Sapphire detective is under investigation for similar offences. Sapphire has already been restructured before, in 2009, after police had failed to stop multiple rapists John Worboys and Kirk Reid. The key error in both cases? Failing to believe the victims.

Women Against Rape reckon just 7% of rapes end in a conviction. Little wonder that the latest London figures show a 15% drop in reported rapes: too many women refuse to go to the police because they have little confidence they will be heard. That is especially true when their rapist is powerful and enjoys a position of public trust, as Savile did on a national scale.

There are big questions here for the police. Some wonder if the Met is overdue another "Macpherson moment", in which it is forced to confront its own institutional sexism the way the Stephen Lawrence case laid bare its racism. It is at least clear that it has enormous work to do to win the trust of women, so that it becomes a first instinct of those who are attacked to report the fact.'

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/12/evil-jimmy-savile-not-alone

There were just so many instances here where women tried to report his behaviour and were dismissed as liars. One victim says her interview on a programme didn't air because 'she was probably lying'. Not just the BBC, but also the police are going to have to explain how this happened - and how to prevent it in future.

[InSPsFanjoNoOneHearsYouScream]

I don't think any good will come off it.

Many people hid the truth and allowed it to happen.

I feel for the victims having to see that man on tv, walking around while people think he is this great and caring man when he was far from it!

I just wish he was alive to face it.

I see my rapist quite often. He walks round without a care in the world as he got away with it

[ProPerformer]

You know what? I bet he would've been cleared by CRB! (sorry if that offends anyone but I have personal knowledge of a CRB'd person getting convicted of child porn crimes ..... And yet theatres still expect me to leave my son alone with a stranger rather than a whole group of my friends backstage! Rant over. Sorry for invading.)

[InSPsFanjoNoOneHearsYouScream]

I really don't think this will change anything apart from the percentage of rapes and abuse reported will drop.

If you aren't protected and safe in a hospital or with people who are meant to care for you and people are willing to cover up abuse including the police then who can you trust to help?

[KRITIQ]

Unfortunately, there have been many "shocking cases" that have hit the headlines - suspicious deaths of Black people in custody, deaths of children where authorities suspected abuse, vulnerable and elderly people neglected in care homes and yes, examples of institutions ignoring or even complicit in sexual abuse. They fill the papers with copy, people express outrage on line and at the school gates. Commentators offer their opinions and always, whoever should have prevented it insists there are "lessons to be learned," and everything will change.

Thing is, rarely does it change. The public are quick to forget what seemed an outrage a few weeks ago when other stories, other tragedies, supplant them. The impetus to do something by the authorities wanes.

Just a couple weeks ago, the report into the Hillsborough disaster came out, pointing the finger of blame at the police, the press, the local council, etc. "People must be held accountable," was the cry everywhere. Is anyone talking about it much now? Is anything being done?

I'm not by nature cynical, but I am old and have seen this happen time and again. In some cases, things DO genuinely happen, things DO change. The sheer number of separate incidents that have involved institutions failing to protect girls from sexual assault (e.g. Rochdale, Bishop Bell School, BBC, etc.) may add weight to calls for change, but who knows. Time will tell. Some of us will keep pushing, campaigning, calling for action. We always have to try. We always have to hope.