Brit Spags! So Jim fixed it...

[Mangrove]

...to be Britain's most prestigious & prodigious paedophile and die without getting caught.

I'm starting to wonder  (a) Whose head rolls next?
                                (b) If the Jonathan King & Gary Glitter episodes were not unrelated incidents.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Who is Jim?

[Mangrove]

Who is Jim?

SIR Jimmy Saville.

He was a DJ and then TV personality in the UK for many years. He was an eccentric 'institution' of the BBC. Aside from doing enormous amounts of charity work, he was most known for a tv show called "Jim'll Fix It" in which children wrote him letters asking him to make their dreams come true. Bit like 'make a wish' foundation only theses kids weren't terminal cases. Sort of like "Dear Jim, could you fix it for me to ride in a hot air balloon? Love Tommy from Leeds." If Jim picked your letter and did the wish, you got to meet him on tv and get a JIM FIXED IT FOR ME medal.

Trouble is, Jim turned out to be a serial sex abuser. Grope kids on your show? Check. Sex with minors at the BBC? Check. Groping sick kids in hospitals? Check. And so the list goes on.

Of a similar era and vintage was Jonathan King, yet another DJ turned tv personality who got hit with a bunch of kiddie porn charges a few years ago. And until Jimmy Saville, the biggest case was Gary Glitter who also went down for kiddie porn and I believe, sex offenses in other countries.

In 2007 there were rumors circulating about Saville but it hadn't hit critical mass yet. The BBC made a documentary about the claims but shelved it. (The producer who made that show resigned this week.) Since Saville died in 2011, victims have been appearing in droves quite a few of them saying "Well, I told the cops but they said it wasn't possible". Or, people within the BBC would say "Holy crap! Saville is fiddling with kids!" and were told "err..yeah....but he's TOO FAMOUS to be a perv, so let it go."

The BBC are now scrambling about while the police are following up leads. It's a matter of finding out who knew, how much, for how long and why did they do precious little about it. Then of course is the question as to whether he 'acted alone' or whether there's going to be a string of other well known British celebs busted on similar charges.

There's a lot of Britspags of a certain age who are currently getting their childhood memories re-written.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Sir Jimmy Saville. basically, he covered his tracks by being all philanthropic and trading on his reputation, no one believed the victims whilst he was alive and the police were paid off.  The whole thing ties into a very rape-culture environment of flagrant abuse and sexual harassment from the 60's to the 80's at the Beeb.

The Beeb is funded by the taxpayer, now there will be a massive enquiry and Things Will Not Look Good for the BBC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scandal

Even the almost sainted John Peel it turns out was having sex with 15 year olds. I'm so glad I never posted the letter I wrote at 10 to Jim'll Fix It.

[Cain]

As far as I know, in the case of John Peel it was a single allegation.

But as for Saville...yeah.  The BBC closed ranks and protected their own.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet some junior programming manager gets sacked for blocking the Newsnight investigation (because we all know such minor functionaries have the power to block programs from airing), the Director-General will proclaim the case closed, and nothing will be heard about it from the company ever again.

The question of who at the BBC might have known about Saville's appetites at the time they were going on, but decided to keep quiet because he was one of their star presenters, will also be likely ignored. 

And indeed, who outside of the Beeb might have known.  His charity work allowed him to move in some fairly select circles....close friend of Maggie Thatcher, for example.  Jehan Sadat, the wife of the Egyptian President of the same name, is another.

Too much potential for embarassment.  This inquiry will be strictly limited and quickly solved, because the questions and suspicions are just too uncomfortable to be allowed to fester.  Some poor sap who is overcharging on his expenses and turns up late for the meetings will take the blame, the tabloids will heap shame on him, and everyone will forget the wider context.

[Mangrove]

As far as I know, in the case of John Peel it was a single allegation.

But as for Saville...yeah.  The BBC closed ranks and protected their own.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet some junior programming manager gets sacked for blocking the Newsnight investigation (because we all know such minor functionaries have the power to block programs from airing), the Director-General will proclaim the case closed, and nothing will be heard about it from the company ever again.

The question of who at the BBC might have known about Saville's appetites at the time they were going on, but decided to keep quiet because he was one of their star presenters, will also be likely ignored. 

And indeed, who outside of the Beeb might have known.  His charity work allowed him to move in some fairly select circles....close friend of Maggie Thatcher, for example.  Jehan Sadat, the wife of the Egyptian President of the same name, is another.

Too much potential for embarassment.  This inquiry will be strictly limited and quickly solved, because the questions and suspicions are just too uncomfortable to be allowed to fester.  Some poor sap who is overcharging on his expenses and turns up late for the meetings will take the blame, the tabloids will heap shame on him, and everyone will forget the wider context.

Depressing but likely outcomes ITT.  Seems that the BBC's method of handling this took the form of:

BBC: Jim! What's all this flap about you being a perv?
Jim: It's not true.
BBC: Ok, carry on old bean.

[Cain]

Yup.  Hell, look at this, today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20070093

Labour MP Tom Watson has said police must investigate claims of a "powerful paedophile ring" linked to a previous prime minister's "senior adviser" and Parliament.

He asked David Cameron to ensure that officers looked into the allegations.

Mr Cameron said he would look into the issue, although he said he was not clear which former prime minister's adviser was being referred to.

The exchanges came during Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons.

Mr Watson said an evidence file collected by the police to convict paedophile Peter Righton in 1992 "contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring".

"One of its members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former prime minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad," he said.

"The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10."

David Cameron said it was a "very difficult and complex case" and he was "not entirely sure" which former prime minister Mr Watson was referring to.

But he agreed to look at the case "very carefully and see what the government can do" to give Mr Watson the assurances he wanted.

I find this rather interesting, as I'm sure something came up in the foreign press (CounterPunch, IIRC) about someone linked to the Cabinet being swept up in Operation Ore.  But that was early 2000s, and I doubt the police were still collecting information on the case 10 years later.  Either way, you have another case of a pedophile being linked to the powerful, and the whole thing being neglected because of the potential embarassment and political fallout.

This is no different.  No doubt in two decades, we'll have Tom Watson asking for the files on the Saville case to be reviewed.

[Mangrove]

Yup.  Hell, look at this, today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20070093

Labour MP Tom Watson has said police must investigate claims of a "powerful paedophile ring" linked to a previous prime minister's "senior adviser" and Parliament.

He asked David Cameron to ensure that officers looked into the allegations.

Mr Cameron said he would look into the issue, although he said he was not clear which former prime minister's adviser was being referred to.

The exchanges came during Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons.

Mr Watson said an evidence file collected by the police to convict paedophile Peter Righton in 1992 "contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring".

"One of its members boasts of his links to a senior aide of a former prime minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad," he said.

"The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10."

David Cameron said it was a "very difficult and complex case" and he was "not entirely sure" which former prime minister Mr Watson was referring to.

But he agreed to look at the case "very carefully and see what the government can do" to give Mr Watson the assurances he wanted.

I find this rather interesting, as I'm sure something came up in the foreign press (CounterPunch, IIRC) about someone linked to the Cabinet being swept up in Operation Ore.  But that was early 2000s, and I doubt the police were still collecting information on the case 10 years later.  Either way, you have another case of a pedophile being linked to the powerful, and the whole thing being neglected because of the potential embarassment and political fallout.

This is no different.  No doubt in two decades, we'll have Tom Watson asking for the files on the Saville case to be reviewed.

Yikes.

Incidentally, I was reading the link to the Independent that Pixie put on the thread about Israel. There's some gory details there about the Savile case including the BBC guy who said he didn't want to make a big deal out of the Newsnight fiasco because he had a 'busy lunch'. 

[Cain]

We're almost getting to the stage of overlapping scandals here.  Consider:

Tom Watson brings up the 10 Downing Street Ring in Parliament.  Watson was one of the principle movers in the Leveson Inquiry, partially because News International hacked his phone.

News International worked with a corrupt South Yorkshire cop who was forced to resign recently because of how he colluded with The Sun in smearing the survivors of the Hillsborough tragedy.

Tom Watson's information about the Downing Street ring comes from a 1998 article by Nick Davies.

The information about the News International hacking scandal was originally unearthed by Nick Davies.

Tom Watson has also noted he was informed the Met "had material suggesting Savile was a predatory pedophile" but they were reluctant to act on it.

All we need now is to discover that Jimmy Savile killed Daniel Morgan and we will have come to the "Illuminati moment" of British politics.

[Mangrove]

We're almost getting to the stage of overlapping scandals here.  Consider:

Tom Watson brings up the 10 Downing Street Ring in Parliament.  Watson was one of the principle movers in the Leveson Inquiry, partially because News International hacked his phone.

News International worked with a corrupt South Yorkshire cop who was forced to resign recently because of how he colluded with The Sun in smearing the survivors of the Hillsborough tragedy.

Tom Watson's information about the Downing Street ring comes from a 1998 article by Nick Davies.

The information about the News International hacking scandal was originally unearthed by Nick Davies.

Tom Watson has also noted he was informed the Met "had material suggesting Savile was a predatory pedophile" but they were reluctant to act on it.

All we need now is to discover that Jimmy Savile killed Daniel Morgan and we will have come to the "Illuminati moment" of British politics.

Owing to ubiquity of conspiracy theory nut bags, I have tended to take them (theories & nut bags) with a pinch of salt*. However, here is one of those times where the Dan Brown-esque story unfolding from Jimmy Savile and co. is very likely to be true. I guess that believing that there are 'no conspiracies anywhere' is as dangerous as believing that everything is.



*Not all nut bags contain salt of course. I like to eat plain cashews for instance.

[Cain]

In my experience, the vast majority of probably existing actual conspiracies are either:

a) military in nature, concerning special operations, training and supplying of groups, false-flag attacks and so on.  Warfare on the cheap, and all warfare is based on deception.

b) people linked to a person who did some very embarrassing things, and could come back on them, even if only indirectly.  Much of the inconsistencies around 9/11 probably have to do with Saudi, Pakistani and covert US support for Islamist terrorism, for example.  Said support itself comes under category a, of course. 

Savile falls into the latter category.  He spent Christmas at Chequers throughout the 80s, when Saint Thatcher was Prime Minister, after all.  Now that scandal could have caused significant problems for a government, couldn't have it?  And since we know the Metropolitan police have a generally conservative political bias, it's not a bad question to ask if this was covered up to prevent harm to the government of the day.

[Mangrove]

In my experience, the vast majority of probably existing actual conspiracies are either:

a) military in nature, concerning special operations, training and supplying of groups, false-flag attacks and so on.  Warfare on the cheap, and all warfare is based on deception.

b) people linked to a person who did some very embarrassing things, and could come back on them, even if only indirectly.  Much of the inconsistencies around 9/11 probably have to do with Saudi, Pakistani and covert US support for Islamist terrorism, for example.  Said support itself comes under category a, of course. 

Savile falls into the latter category.  He spent Christmas at Chequers throughout the 80s, when Saint Thatcher was Prime Minister, after all.  Now that scandal could have caused significant problems for a government, couldn't have it?  And since we know the Metropolitan police have a generally conservative political bias, it's not a bad question to ask if this was covered up to prevent harm to the government of the day.

This makes the Profumo Affair look very tame in comparison. When politicians are having affairs or frequenting hookers we tend to take it in our stride. But, a combination of paedophillia, politicians, police and celebrities is frightening. Hell, any one of those is scary its own but in combination? [shudder]

Again, as disgusting as they frequently turn out to be, the military cover ups don't surprise me so much as frustrate & irritate me. The last presidential debate touched upon the 'we want to make sure we give guns to the good guys' issue. Yeah, that worked out so well in Afghanistan in the 80s.

That Savile was cozied up with Thatcher isn't much of a revelation. That she was best buds with Pinochet already convinced me that being a good judge of character wasn't one of her strong points.

[Cain]

Here's the Nick Davies article from 1998

http://www.nickdavies.net/1998/04/01/the-sheer-scale-of-child-sexual-abuse-in-britain/

The ease of the crime is reflected in its scale. No one knows the exact numbers, but to construct a picture is to watch an arithmetical explosion. Start with a hard fact. At the last count, there were 2,100 child sex abusers behind the bars of British jails. Now think of all those who have previously been convicted but who have been released back into the community. You have to multiply by 50: according to the Home Office Research Department, there are 108,000 convicted paedophiles in the community.

Now, think of all the child victims who are conned and confused and never report their abuse in the first place; and all those cases which are reported but which fall short of the demands of the courts; and all those cases of rape and indecent assault which are convicted but which are not statistically recorded as crimes against children. At the most conservative estimate, the NSPCC and specialist police agree with studies here and in the United States, that the official figures for convictions record no more than ten per cent of the paedophile population. Which means that today in Britain, there are probably 1.1 million paedophiles at large. Other studies suggest that the figure is very much higher.

This vast scale appears to be confirmed by "prevalance studies" which take samples of the population and establish how many were childhood victims of sexual abuse. In the UK, the United States, Germany, Switzerland and Australia, studies consistently find that around 20% of women and around 8% of men suffered sexual abuse as children. In the current population of UK children, that would cover 1.5 million girls and 520,000 boys, a figure that is consistent with the projection of 1.1 million offenders.

For example, police now invest relatively little time in the surveillance of public toilets where gay men go cottaging. The one thing that is likely still to trigger such an operation is a complaint that under-aged boys are involved – unless, that is, the toilets in question happen to be those behind the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, in which case, under the terms of a long-standing Metropolitan Police policy, the operation will take place only if it has the approval of an officer of the rank of commander or above. According to experienced London officers, the reason is that those toilets are used by High Court judges and barristers, and the Metropolitan Police have always said they do not want to encounter such a powerful offender without special authority.

Fleet Street routinely nurtures a crop of untold stories about powerful abusers who have evaded justice. One such is Peter Morrison, formerly the MP for Chester and the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party. Ten years ago, Chris House, the veteran crime reporter for the Sunday Mirror, twice received tip-offs from police officers who said that Morrison had been caught cottaging in public toilets with underaged boys and had been released with a caution. A less powerful man, the officers complained, would have been charged with gross indecency or an offence against children.

At the time, Chris House confronted Morrison, who used libel laws to block publication of the story. Now, Morrison is dead and cannot sue. Police last week confirmed that he had been picked up twice and never brought to trial. They added that there appeared to be no trace of either incident in any of the official records

Often the links between abusers lie beneath the surface of less horrific conspiracies. Take, for example, the case of Greystone Heath, an approved school for boys in Warrington, which for years enjoyed an unsullied reputation until police finally discovered that it had become a hot spot for paedophiles. This one institution – whose history of abuse is echoed now in scores of others – is a model of everyday paedophile collusion.

It appears to have started in 1965 when a 21-year-old student teacher named Keith Laverack went to work there and embarked on a campaign of buggery and indecent assault. Over the ensuing four years, he raped at least 16 boys, three of whom he shared with his colleague, Brian Percival, the clerk and storeman at the home. Once these two men had established sexual rights over the boys at Greystone, other abusers joined the staff: Alan Langshaw, who raped at least 24 boys; Dennis Grain who raped at least 18; Roy Shuttleworth who raped at least ten; Jack Bennett who indecently assaulted two; and Steve Norris who assaulted an unknown number.

The Greystone abusers then fanned out. Keith Laverack went to childrens' homes in Cambridgeshire; Alan Langshaw became Principal of St Vincent's Catholic boys' home in Formby; Grain and Shuttleworth were both promoted to other homes in the Warrington area; Steve Norris went to North Wales. At their new homes, all of them continued to rape boys who were in their care and wherever they went, they crossed the paths of other paedophiles.

In Cambridgeshire, Keith Laverack worked with numerous colleagues, four of whom are now also suspected of abusing children. Dennis Grain worked in Doncaster for the same group of private schools as Terence Hoskins who went on to become headteacher of St Aiden's Community Home in Widnes, where he liked to thrash naked boys with a cane, which he then pushed into their backsides, while his housemaster, Colin Dick, indecently assaulted those who caught his eye. Dennis Grain had previously attacked boys in Danesford childrens' home in Congleton, opening the door to three others, John Clarke, Joseph Smith and Brian Hudson, who set about the boys with relish. Dennis Grain, in the meantime, went off to work at Eton, where he became a housemaster. The web is almost endless.

While he was Principal of St Vincent's, Alan Langshaw recruited a care worker named Edward Stanton, who joined in Langshaw's orgy. Stanton appears to have got the job through the good offices of Roy Shuttleworth, who was continuing to abuse the boys at Greystone and who is believed to have known Stanton from their time in Birmingham when they took the same course in residential child care.

That course in Birmingham, in turn, is believed to have been lectured by Peter Righton, a notorious paedophile who attempted to legitimise his obsession in a series of academic studies. Righton, for his part, belonged to the Paedophile Information Exchange, along with Jack Bennett who joined in the abuse at Greystone. Righton had earlier worked in the same childrens' home in Maidstone, Kent as Peter Howarth, who went on to become a legendary abuser in the homes of North Wales where he shared his indulgence with Steve Norris, formerly of Greystone.

Each of these men claims to have abused alone. Even though their paths connected so frequently, even though the Greystone abusers were assaulting boys in buildings within yards of each other, even though several of them were raping the same boys, they claim never to have colluded with each other. No one who has been involved with investigating Greystone believes them.

The evidence suggests that such abusers not only collude to give each other work and access to children, but also to infiltrate the child protection system. Peter Righton lectured not only in Birmingham but in numerous other colleges. Before he was finally taken to court and convicted, he became a highly regarded consultant in child care and, eventually, the Director of Education at the prestigious National Institute of Social Work in London, a position from which he was able to have some influence on Government policy.

With similar cynicism, Keith Laverack, who opened the catalogue of abuse at Greystone Heath, went on to run the Guardian Ad Litem panel for Cambridgeshire County Council, with the job of representing the interests of children in court cases. This job not only introduced him to the most vulnerable children in the area but also gave him access to files on abused children all over the country. Terence Hoskins, who worked with some of the Greystone abusers, used connections with South Yorkshire police to get access to his own file, from the supposedly secret National Criminal Intelligence Service, NCIS.

Roger Saint who spent years assaulting his foster children in Clwyd secured himself a job on the local adoption panel, from which he could referee complaints about people like himself.

[Mangrove]

Cain, thank you for the Nick Davies article even though it's left me full of 

Of course, you do realize that the Catholic Church blames institutionalized paedohpillia on the 'permissive 1960s'.

[Cain]

Sure.  The Telegraph and Mail have already declared Savile a left-wing hero, despite his Thatcher-Sadat friendships.  Their logic seems to be - BBC is a communist plot, therefore everyone who has ever worked for the BBC is a Communist.

Edit: if you want to see more of Nick Davies writing on this topic, I suggest looking into his investigation of Warwick Spinks.