To wonder what people really thought of Jimmy Savile when he was alive?

[BarmyBrunhilde]

I'm a millennial, and was only really vaguely aware of who he was really, so watching the recent Netflix documentary I was fairly bemused to see how popular he seemed to be. Obviously he was beloved by the establishment, including the royals, Thatcher etc but he seemed to have massive following among the public.

Everyone now seems to say 'oh yes I always knew he was creepy' but I have to wonder - for those who grow up in the 60s-80s how was he really seen? In the documentary it seems like he had always had crowds of screaming and adoring fans, and they generally seemed none the wiser? It seemed like industry people and his poor victims were the only ones who really had any idea.

Savile hid in plain sight, protected by all the dirt he held on senior figures like Cyril Smith, & his influence in procuring vulnerable children for the Westmister VIP paedo circuit

There is zero evidence for this, just rumour and slurs.... esp as Smith was never in a mainstream party, i don't think Govt listened to him.

I'm going to leave it now, the thread isn't about Labour, Harman or PIE which wasn't a banned organisation and which your links did admit Harman wouldn't never have known about this awful but legal group.

Maybe start a new thread on the subject if its important to you?

@Emotionalstorm sorry-you watched, not you wanted...

@Florenz I was at school in the Midlands from 1992 onwards. I remember, in upper primary (so 1997/1998?) talking - matter of factly -about Jimmy Saville having sex with dead bodies. My friend's mum grew up in Wakefield but otherwise no connection to Leeds. I don't remember really thinking of him at all other than that - never watched Jim'll Fix It, and didn't really know who he was.

He lived in the local area when I lived in Bucks and he used to go to an Italian restaurant which we used to take our girls to.
He always sat in the back function room rather than with the other diners, he always had two youngish men with him. Occasionally the owner of the restaurant used to come along and ask diners if any of the kids wanted to meet him. I never saw any takers, he was seen as being more than a bit odd even then. V creepy.

Yes, as is Kincora Boy's Home in Belfast, the goings on aboard a famous politicians yacht and many, many other horrific crimes on the vulnerable. He was a known necrophiliac and granted access to the morgue in some of the hospitals he 'worked' with. He was rumoured to have stolen a man's glass eye and have it made into a ring as a morbid souvenir, psychopathic monster. He was the charismatic leader type who charmed & terrified everyone around him, it was also peak celeb, fame time in history of TV, showbiz and media and in the UK ex club disc jockeys with a big following became radio dj's and then ended up on the BBC, obv TOTP being the ultimate social cleanser for him, as he could be down with the kids. His links into the establishment are hard to believe but much of this has been known but libelous so could not be published. We need to question all who want to propelled themselves into corridors of influence and why. He had a private key to bloody Broadmoor? And a room......

I worked at the BBC in the early 70s and was warned, as were other young staff, to avoid him. He was known to be a pervert but it was all very vague and hush hush. He had, as we now know, friends in high places and I'm sure this must have played a part in how he remained untouchable.

😂Aaaw, maybe google up a tutorial on how discussion forums work?

Savile was linked to PIE members, PIE & Savile were linked to the Westminster Paedo circuit, Harman was fully aware of PIE's existence & aims, Smith was outed after death for offences as vile (if not prolific) as Savile's, & your obsession with defending Harman because she was a Labour MP is transparent & laughable.

Near life-long Labour supporter here btw ... (disillusioned by Blair, defected after Starmer).

There is zero evidence for this, just rumour and slurs.... esp as Smith was never in a mainstream party, i don't think Govt listened to him.

You reckon the Liberal Party wasn't mainstream in the 70's & 80's? 😂😂
If you are too young to have understood the facts at first hand, maybe brush up on your history?

I refer you once again to Operation Fairbank & Operation Midland. I'm no more inventing "rumour & slurs" than the police - who are STILL investigating the Westminster paedo ring - are.

I was a teenager in the 70s. The attitudes to under age sex were very different then. I remember being shocked to hear about child abuse as I had never realised such things even happened.

It was common for celebrities like DJs and pop stars to have teenage groupies. It was considered cool to be 14 and have sex with someone like that. The teen was presumed to know exactly what they were doing. Paula Yates was about 15/16 when she ran off with Bob Geldof 8 years her senior and they were plenty of examples of younger girls doing similar.

I know Jimmy Savile went much further than just having sex with teenage girls, but I'm just saying that attitudes were very different then. And his story is far from being the only one to surface from those days (though definitely the worst) - I saw a documentary on Max Clifford a while back - he coerced teens into sex and held sex parties, but made out the girls were all there voluntarily. Etc.

Personally I found him creepy. I felt there was something very odd about him and he admitted he had never had a relationship which I couldn't fathom given his wealth / status. Even famous gay men would often fabricate a hetero relationship in those days to maintain appearances.

I can't say I suspected him of what he actually did. He was incredibly famous - I remember looking out for him in the London Marathon etc. He was very much known for his charity work and I suppose one felt that, although he was weird, he was doing a lot of good for society.

Watching the documentaries we now have makes it look like there was plenty to question (which of course there was) but it was not generally questioned. He was just "there".

Some of the disbelieving posts on this thread neatly illustrate how men like Saville get away with it for so long. It doesn't matter how much evidence exists, there will always be enough people in key positions to turn a blind eye.

And that imo is the real point of high level pedophile networks. You think its all about being able to act out your fetish, but in reality someone higher up has enough dirt on you that they can ruin your life, and now has the ability to call in favours from you.

You've really got to read those old threads about Jimmy Saville that a previous poster linked to. There were lots and lots of posters (including well known posters) sticking up for him.

Ok I've resorted to google.
BBC overview (think needs updating?) if investigations:

www.bbc.com/news/uk-28194271.amp

Operation Midland closed with no charges:

lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-2016-0033/

Can't find conclusion to Fairbank yet:

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2016-0033/LLN-2016-0033.pdf

Wiki says it closed with no charges in 2015

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ElmGuesttHousehoax

Also-there were many high profile men in relationships with very much younger women. Including Prince Charles. So yes, the landscape was very different.

I grew up in the 70's/80's, so when Saville was pretty ubiquitous. I didn't like him as a presenter, he looked like he'd been plucked from some dingy working mans club and put in front of a camera. His catch phrases were irritating, his dress sense was awful (particularly when he was running, satin shorts and string vests), his hair was bizzare and that horrible cigar (I can remember thinking how bad he must smell, cigar smoke is so strong).

We didn't watch him much because he was just annoying. How he was so bloody popular I don't know, it certainly baffled my parents.

He definitely had a creepy/shifty air about him in interviews. Did we think he was a paedophile? No.

Hi @OneFrenchEgg "no charges" doesn't mean "no perpetrators".
In these circumstances, it usually means "big whitewash".
Similar to eg the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities in 2020 - an exercise in maintaining the status quo while being ostensibly seen to 'do something'.

I was looking at your post of 10.21 to see if the Operations were still active. Police said if one of them that only three convictions secured and majority of info was internet rumours.
I don't agree re: no charges always means whitewash.

*of

Of course you're right that it doesn't always mean whitewash.
And I mean no personal disrespect to you at all by maintaining otherwise in this case.

For PP who were adults in the 70's/80's, who heard the rumours, who saw the whitewashing around eg Cyril Smith, who knew about the Rochdale Boys scandal, who heard what Edward Heath liked to do on his yacht, who wondered why Savile had such privileged & chummy access to VIP's like Thatcher & Prince Charles - it's clear as a bell that a decades-long coverup of paedophilia has been carried out.

It's very much more comfortable to disbelieve it & natural to not want to think about it. But it's fact.

Oh I definitely was very unaware as a child of any of this - I applied, would have gone on Jim'll Fix IT etc. And I can believe there were rumours and warnings that never saw daylight.

only three convictions secured

Child abuse is even harder to prove than sexual assault on adults.

Factor in the difficulties of the historic scope of investigation, & the fact that less than 1% of reported rapes end in convictions, & I'd hazard that the cops did well to convict 3 of the many perps in this sorry business.

I agree.

Iirc he was always odd and weird. But no concerns from anyone I knew that he might be a paedo.
Times were very very different at that time so lots of things were considered "ok" then which thankfully wouldn't be today

I don't doubt what you are saying is true in sure the paedophile ring went much further than we know about ,but I think we live in a very different time now with the internet and 24he news coverage you would hope these tthings would be uncovered much sooner.
I fell. a very dark rabbit hole reading about Jimmy Seville,and there were suggestions about him and 're Yorkshire ripper ,and wether Peter Sutcliffe wasn't responsible for as many murders that he was found guilty of and maybe saville was involved ?

TBH, there’s a well known male tv presenter (ex childrens presenter) who is still getting away with having groomed a male child. It is still covered up by the ‘establishment’.