Investigation into the dossier alone does not go far enough, says Shadow Home Secretary Natasha Culzac Saturday 05 July 2014 The disappearance of a dossier which detailed alleged paedophile activity by government officials has led to further calls on David Cameron to stage a fuller and more in-depth investigation into historic child abuse within Westminster. The campaigning MP Geoffrey Dickens handed the “explosive” file to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan in 1983. He had reportedly told his family that it would “blow the lid off” the lives of the most well-known and influential child abusers. The Prime Minister has now asked Home Office Permanent Secretary Mark Sedwill to stage a fresh probe into the handling of the report. Shadow Home Sectary Yvette Cooper said the Prime Minister’s latest dossier review does not go far enough, instead calling for an “over-arching” and “comprehensive” investigation into all allegations.
READ MORE: MP will name politician 'involved in child abuse' Council ‘misled’ police over sex abuse "The Prime Minister is right to intervene to demand a proper investigation into the allegations of child abuse not being acted upon by the Home Office, because we have not had answers from the Home Secretary," she said. "The Prime Minister should ensure that the action now taken by the Home office amounts to a proper investigation into what happened and also that Theresa May publish the full review conducted in 2013.
Geoffrey Dickens campaigned against a suspected pedophile ring
"We also need assurance that the police have been given full information
now and are investigating any abuse allegations or crimes that may have
been committed.
"The Prime Minister should also establish an
over-arching review led by child protection experts to draw together the
results from all these different case, investigations and institutional
inquiries.
Mr Dickens’ son, Barry, has told the BBC
that his father, who died in 1995, would have been “hugely angered,
disappointed and frustrated” if he knew that his revelations had not
been acted upon.
He said: “My father thought that the dossier at
the time was the most powerful thing that had ever been produced, with
the names that were involved and the power that they had.”
Barry
also went on to detail how the burglaries of his father’s London flat
and constituency home in Greater Manchester following the allegations
amounted to nothing being taken.
"They weren't burglaries," he
said. "They were break-ins for a reason. We can only presume they were
after something that Dad had that they wanted."
Labour MP Simon
Danczuk was one of a handful of MPs calling on the Home Office to
revisit the dossier, after a 2013 review concluded that the file had
been passed on to the police and the material destroyed in line with the
policies of the time.
He told the Commons Home Affairs Committee that there needs to be full public inquiry.
"The
Prime Minister knows that there is a growing sense of public anger
about allegations of historic abuse involving senior politicians and his
statement represents little more than a damage limitation exercise. It
doesn't go far enough.
"The public has lost confidence in these
kind of official reviews, which usually result in a whitewash. The only
way to get to the bottom of this is a thorough public inquiry." Source
Former Littleborough and Saddleworth MP Geoffrey Dickens
handed the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan 'a bundle of papers' about
the alleged child abuse ring in the early 1980s.
The former Home Secretary Lord Brittan
An explosive dossier which threatened to expose a vile paedophile
network operating at the heart of government was created over 30 years
by a pioneering former Rochdale MP, it has been revealed.
The
papers, penned by former Littleborough and Saddleworth MP Geoffrey
Dickens in the early 1980s, were passed to the then home secretary Leon
Brittan, now Lord Brittan, to investigate.
Lord Brittan confirmed
that Mr Dickens, who died in 1995, passed him ‘a substantial bundle of
papers’ about the alleged child abuse ring.
He said he asked officials to look into the claims but ‘did not recall’ being contacted about the allegations again.
The Home Office said it had reviewed how it had dealt with the papers and concluded it had ‘acted appropriately’.
Despite the seriousness of the claims made in Mr Dicken’s dossier, Lord Brittan says the papers were not retained.
It comes after the current MP Simon Danczuk repeated Mr Dicken’s claims in a book about his predecessor Cyril Smith, whom he alleged was a serial child abuser protected from justice by a network of paedophiles at the heart of the government.
Speaking
at a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on Tuesday, he called on
Lord Brittan to reveal what he knew about the Dickens dossier.
Lord Brittan said he believed he had acted ‘appropriately’.
He
said: “I have been alerted to a Home Office independent review
conducted last year into what information it received about organised
child sex abuse between 1979 and 1999.
“The review found information had been dealt with properly.
“It also disclosed that material received from Mr Dickens in November 1983 and January 1984 had not been retained.
“However, a letter was sent from myself to Mr Dickens on March 20, 1984, explaining what had been done in relation to the files.
“Whilst
I could not recall what further action was taken 30 years ago, the
information contained in this report shows that appropriate action and
follow-up happened.”
But Mr Danczuk said Lord Brittan had failed to do enough to expose the alleged child abuse network.
He
said: “The job of the Home Secretary is to protect the country from
criminals and paedophilia is one of the worst crimes imaginable.
“To
hear a former home secretary dismiss evidence from Mr Dickens, a member
of his own party who has a strong track record in campaigning on
paedophilia, in such a casual, procedural manner is extremely worrying.
“Mr
Dickens would no doubt have pressed upon Lord Brittan the seriousness
and scale of organised paedophilia and everyone would expect a home
secretary to show leadership when faced with such allegations, not just
pass the dossier on and forget about it.”
Simon Danczuk
A spokesperson for the Home Office confirmed they had reviewed how they had dealt with Mr Dicken’s dossier.
They
said: “The review concluded the Home Office acted appropriately,
referring information received during this period to the relevant
authorities.”
In a separate development, the Crown Prosecution
Service, has promised to release files detailing why they didn’t charge
Cyril Smith with child abuse offences in the late 1990s, but said they
needed to redact the documents first to protection the identities of
victims.
It also emerged this week that Cyril Smith sent a letter
to the BBC in 1976 saying he was ‘deeply concerned about the
investigative activities of the BBC’ who were probing ‘the private lives
of certain MPs’.
Geoffrey Dickens believed Parliament treated accusations of sex abuse lightly
because influential people were involved and were determined to keep it quiet
Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, left, handed the dossier to Leon Brittan, who was the home secretary at the time
To MPs and Westminster journalists in the early 1980s, the disclosure that a
dossier alleging an Establishment paedophile ring was presented to Leon
Brittan, then home secretary, comes as no surprise.
Its purveyor was the Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, a former heavyweight boxer and
doughty investigator of what he believed to be a conspiracy to cover up sex
abuse of children perpetrated by people in high places.
He would have
considered the apparent disappearance of the dossier as further confirmation
of deliberate concealment.
Dickens, who died in 1995, became associated with the issue 14 years earlier
when the magazine Private Eye disclosed that a senior diplomat and MI6
operative, Sir Peter Hayman, had escaped prosecution over the discovery of
violent pornography on a London bus.
Furthermore, Hayman’s name had been withheld from a trial involving members of
the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE).
The MP tabled a question to the Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, naming
Hayman under the cloak of parliamentary privilege. In his reply, Havers
confirmed that after a packet containing obscene literature and written
material was found on a bus, the police uncovered “correspondence of an
obscene nature” between Hayman and several other persons.
A total of seven
men and two women were named as possible defendants in the report submitted
by the Metropolitan Police to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP
decided not to prefer charges.
Havers also denied there had been a deliberate decision to withhold the
diplomat’s name from a trial involving leaders of PIE accused of conspiracy
to corrupt public morals.
“Although Sir Peter Hayman had subscribed to PIE, that is not an offence and
there is no evidence that he was ever involved in the management. At the
trial, whilst there were general references to members of PIE, including,
though not by name, Sir Peter Hayman, there was no reference to any material
produced by him or found in his possession.”
In fact, Hayman was referred to by the name of Henderson. To Dickens this was
evidence of a deliberate cover-up by the prosecutors and he proposed to take
the matter further. He called a news conference at Westminster but was told
on its eve that a newspaper was about to publish a story that he was having
an affair. His mistress attended the news conference, where Dickens
confessed to “a skeleton in my own cupboard” and a predilection for
afternoon tea dances. His paedophile campaign ran into the buffers of
derision from the press and hostility from fellow parliamentarians, some of
whom denounced his use of parliamentary privilege to name Hayman and accused
him of grandstanding.
It is hard to imagine today, as celebrities from that era are brought before
the courts for historic sex offences, that this matter was treated so
lightly by Parliament. Dickens believed this was because influential people
were involved in the abuse and were determined to shut him up.
In reality, it stemmed more from a startling indifference to what was then
called “kiddy fiddling”. It was as though because it had always gone on, it
was not something to get too worked up about.
For his part, Dickens simply could not understand how an organisation such as
PIE was allowed to exist. He wrote to Margaret Thatcher asking for it to be
banned and in November 1983 he handed a “massive dossier of evidence” to
Leon (now Lord) Brittan, to press the case further. After a 30-minute
meeting, Dickens claimed the home secretary “told me he would investigate
all the cases in my file”.
A few months later he produced further material alleging abuse in a children’s
home, which the Home Office now says is missing, presumed lost or destroyed.
Lord Brittan initially could not recollect the dossier but this week said he
handed it to officials and proper action was taken.
What that was exactly is unclear; and certainly at the time, the home
secretary decided against a ban on PIE and instead outlined a “three-step
approach”: asking chief constables to report to him, urging the DPP to
“consider” prosecuting PIE members and warning parents to keep a close eye
on their children.
This prompted criticism in the press. One editorial said: “Wait and see is not
a policy – it is an excuse. Mr Brittan should respond … with a blast of
rage”.
Frustrated, Dickens brought a Bill before Parliament “to make it an offence to
be a member of any organisation, association, society, religious sect, club
or the like that holds meetings at which support is given to encourage,
condone, corrupt or entice adults to have sexual relationships with
children.”
He added: “Adults in every walk of life are to be found involving themselves
in paedophilia. They range from some of the highest in the land to misfits.”
He pointed out that when Hayman was subsequently convicted of gross indecency
in a public lavatory “there was a conspicuous silence in the House”.
When he asked Mrs Thatcher whether the convicted spy Geoffrey Prime had been
involved in child abuse, she replied: “I understand that stories that the
police found documents in Prime’s house or garage indicating that he was a
member of PIE are without foundation.”
But this was not true. At his trial, mostly held in secret, it was disclosed
that Prime had indeed been detected as a spy through child offences and was
a member of PIE.
Dickens added: “I know exactly what I am up against, for I know that within
the Establishment there are those who would not wish to see a change in the
law.”
In the Commons in 1985, he said: “The noose around my neck grew tighter after
I named a former high-flying British diplomat on the floor of the House …
[and] as important names came into my possession so the threats began.
First, I received threatening telephone calls followed by two burglaries at
my London home. Then, more seriously, my name appeared on a multi-killer’s
hit list.”
Dickens was convinced his house was burgled by MI5 but this was dismissed as
the delusions of a frustrated conspiracy theorist. At this time Westminster
was rife with rumours about the involvement of senior politicians in sex
abuse. They included the Rochdale Liberal MP Sir Cyril Smith, whose name was
often associated with such stories.
Other MPs were suspected, among them Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary private
secretary Sir Peter Morrison, who has been linked to allegations of child
abuse at homes in North Wales.
At one point during the 1980s, the scandal threatened to engulf the Home
Office but newspapers were warned off pursuing unsubstantiated rumours.
As for Dickens, he would probably look at the climate today and wonder whether
the justice currently being dealt out against some of the country’s most
famous figures will finally extend to some of its most powerful as well.
The controversy surrounding claims of a paedophile ring operating in
Westminster in the 1980s has intensified with a former minister
threatening to "name and shame" suspects. For the second day running Downing Street has refused to launch an
over-arching inquiry into the allegations and a missing dossier said to
include "explosive" details of the alleged child sex abuse ring. The prime minister's spokesman again insisted any allegations should
be taken to the police who were the right people to investigate any
allegations. But former Tory children's minister, Tim Loughton, said he is ready
to use the protection of parliamentary privilege to name suspected
paedophiles unless a full inquiry is launched. "Like many in Westminster, I was gravely concerned by the news the
dossier compiled by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens, who spent his career
fighting child abuse, had been lost. Inevitably there is conjecture that
someone deliberately lost it or hushed it up. Who did this? Were they
politicians, civil servants, or police complicit in a cover-up? "There will be those who will want to know why I and my colleagues do
not use parliamentary privilege to name and shame suspected paedophiles
in the Commons. I call it the nuclear option, and it might come to
that," he wrote in the Daily Mail.
Vaz has called for an explanationReuters
And Lord Tebbit, a senior member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet at
the time of the original affair, added his voice to the 139 MPs
demanding an inquiry and proper explanation of what happened to the
dossier. Meanwhile, it has been reported that a senior Tory politician said to
be part of a child sex ring was allegedly stopped by a customs officer
with child pornography videos in the 1980s but was neither arrested nor
charged after senior officers received the material. The MP is believed to have been named in the dossier compiled by
former Tory MP Dickens in the 1980s and passed to the then Home
Secretary Lord Brittan but has since been lost or destroyed. All the allegations relate to the dossier compiled by Dickens which
Brittan confirmed he received in the mid-1980s and passed to officials
and police at the time. No action followed and the documents have since
gone missing. But Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who helped reveal details of child sex
abuse by former Liberal MP Cyril Smith, has demanded a
Hillsborough-style inquiry into all the historic allegations. He fears people will believe there has been an establishment coverup
and this week told a Commons committee that politics was "the last
refuge of child sex abuse deniers".
The chairman of the committee, Labour's Keith Vaz, has asked the Home
Office permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, to explain what happened to
the dossier. What many in Westminster believe is that this affair is gaining a
momentum of its own and that, in the end, a full inquiry drawing
together all strands of the ongoing sex abuse inquiries is needed. Much of the rumour and speculation surrounding the Dickens' dossier,
along with the names of very senior suspects, was widely discussed in
Westminster at the time but there never appeared to be any hard evidence
and no action was ever taken. Political journalists were certainly aware of the names of
individuals suspected of involvement in child sex abuse but, again,
there was never any hard evidence. In fact there were even claims the rumours were themselves part of a shadowy campaign to discredit high-ranking individuals. Now, 30 years later, it appears the allegations might finally be
addressed and, if any of the suspicions which were raised in the 1980s
turn out to be true, and action is taken, it could rock the
establishment.
Former home secretary Lord Brittan says he asked officials to look at papers alleging paedophile activity in Westminster, despite telling Channel 4 News in 2013 he could not "recollect" the dossier.
In 1984, Geoffrey Dickens MP handed over a 50-page dossier to the then home secretary, Leon Brittan, writes Paraic O'Brien.
It is believed that the dossier (which the Home Office
confirms has been lost) contained information about suspected VIP
paedophile rings and the abuse of boys in care homes.
On 25 February 2013, I sent Leon Brittan an email enquiring about the dossier given to him by Mr Dickens in the early 80s.
Child abuse
In the email, I said: "I'm trying to find a dossier that
was given to you by Geoffrey Dickens MP regarding child abuse while
you were home secretary. I've been in contact with the Home Office but
am not holding out much hope that they will be able to find it."
I went on to ask him whether he had any recollection of
the dossier. Half an hour later, Lord Brittan replied by email. He
wrote: "I'm afraid I do not recollect this and do not have any records
which would be of assistance, Leon Brittan."
But today the Tory peer issued a statement after Labour MP Simon Danczuk said he should "share his knowledge" about the file prepared by Mr Dickens.
Paedophile Information Exchange
Mr Danczuk was giving evidence to the home affairs
select committee on Tuesday. According to Mr Danczuk, it contained
information about the "Paedophile Information Exchange (Pie), about paedophiles operating a network within and around Westminster".
In the statement on Wednesday, Leon Brittan displays a
remarkably vivid recollection of having received the dossier: "During
my time as home secretary (1983 to 1985), Geoff Dickens MP arranged to
see me at the Home Office.
"I invariably agreed to see any MP who requested a
meeting with me. As I recall, he came to my room at the Home Office
with a substantial bundle of papers.
'Looked at carefully'
"As is normal practice, my private secretary would have
been present at the meeting. I told Mr Dickens that I would ensure
that the papers were looked at carefully by the Home Office and acted
on as necessary.
"Following the meeting, I asked my officials to look
carefully at the material contained in the papers provided and report
back to me if they considered that any action needed to be taken by
the Home Office.
"In addition I asked my officials to consider a referral
to another government department, such as the Attorney General's
department, if that was appropriate.
"This was the normal procedure for handling material
presented to the home secretary. I do not recall being contacted
further about these matters by Home Office officials or by Mr Dickens
or by anyone else."
Further clarification
However, Lord Brittan later issued a second statement,
admitting he had mis-remembered events, stating: "In the last hour I
have been alerted to a Home Office independent review conducted last
year into what information it received about organised child sex abuse
between 1979 and 1999,"
The statement added: "a letter was sent from myself to
Mr Dickens on March 20, 1984 explaining what had been done in relation
to the files.
"The Home Office independent review is entirely
consistent with the action I set out in my earlier statement. Whilst I
could not recall what further action was taken 30 years ago, the
information contained in this report shows that appropriate action and
follow-up happened."
Labour MP Simon Danczuk has cricitised former Home Secretary Lord Brittan over
his handling of an investigation in the 1980s into claims of a paedophile
ring in Westminster, and also questioned how the Home Office and current
Home Secretary Theresa May had dealt with the allegations
Lord Brittan released his statement after Labour MP Simon Danczuk
challenged him to "share his knowledge" about the file prepared by
Geoffrey Dickens, a Conservative MP, in the 1980s.
It contained information about the "Paedophile Information Exchange (Pie), about paedophiles operating a network within and around Westminster", Mr Danczuk told the Home Affairs Select Committee yesterday.
Mr Danczuk, who has investigated claims of abuse by ex-MP Cyril Smith, has called for a "Hillsborough-style" inquiry to prevent child abuse allegations involving politicians being "swept under the carpet".
Related Articles
Leon Brittan:
MPs have felt "bullied" into signing a petition demanding an inquiry into child sex abuse, MPs have heard.
Labour's Simon Danczuk told the Commons Home Affairs Select
Committee that over 120 MPs had signed a letter to the Home Secretary
calling for a probe.
But Tory Mark Reckless said some colleagues were fearful that
if they did not sign they would be accused of being "sexual abuse
deniers".
Mr Danczuk helped expose Liberal MP Cyril Smith as a child sex abuser.
He said he had come under pressure about whether he should name suspects or not.
He told the MPs that Smith, a former Rochdale MP, had only
escaped prosecution because "he was part of network of people" who
protected each other.
Hillsborough-style probe?
He said the police had investigated Smith, who died in 2010, from the 1950s to the 1990s, but no prosecution was brought.
"He only stopped because he died," said Mr Danczuk, the current Rochdale MP.
"He was part of a network of people that were protecting each
other - in terms of this type of abuse - that allowed him to get away
with the crimes he committed."
Mr Danczuk said he wanted a "Hillsborough-style" inquiry into
the extent of child sex abuse among people in high office "to give a
voice to the voiceless".
"I actually think that politics is the last refuge of child
sex abuse," he said, stressing that other institutions like the police,
local authorities and the media had dealt with it.
"But in terms of politics there's a view that we should sweep it under the carpet, that we shouldn't name people," he said.
"There's pressure applied as to whether I name people or not."
Mr Danczuk said more than 120 MPs had sent a letter to Home
Secretary Theresa May calling for an inquiry. "We have seen a sea-change
in terms of this type of issue," he said.
But Mr Reckless said some MPs had felt bullied into signing up in case they were accused of being sexual abuse deniers.
Mr Danczuk recently published a book alleging more than 140
complaints had been made by victims about Cyril Smith, but the former MP
had been left free to abuse children as young as eight.
Greater Manchester Police and Rochdale Council are carrying
out two separate investigations into child abuse allegations involving
the late MP.
More than 100 MPs are calling for a larger inquiry into historical claims of child abuse in schools, hospitals and care homes.
A
Labour MP has called for a former home secretary to make public what he
knew about allegations of paedophiles operating in Westminster in the
1980s.
Simon Danczuk said that a dossier of allegations about
paedophiles was presented to Leon Brittan when he was home secretary
between 1983 and 1985.
"It would be welcome if he stepped forward and shared his knowledge of the allegations", he told MPs.
The MP helped expose the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith as a child sex abuser.
Speaking at a meeting of the Commons Home Affairs Select
committee, Mr Danczuk called for a national overarching
"Hillsborough-style" inquiry into historical allegations of child sex
abuse.
'Last refuge'
He said that politics was "the last refuge of child sex abuse
deniers" and there was a view among many politicians that alleged
offenders should not be named.
An inquiry would help identify other perpetrators, he said.
Earlier in the hearing he said that Cyril Smith escaped
prosecution because he was "part of a network of people protecting each
other".
His victims, Mr Danczuk said, were "poor, white, working
class boys" in the same way that forty years later the victims of
grooming in Rochdale were "poor, white, working class girls."
He referred to a police investigation into a former guest
house in South London where children were allegedly abused in the 1980s.
The police have confirmed that Cyril Smith had been a visitor
to Elm Guest House. Mr Danczuk said he had spoken to a victim Smith had
abused there and that "other high profile figures are alleged to have
attended there."
He said a dossier of allegations, compiled at the time by the
former Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, had been presented to Mr
Brittan.
In a separate development, the Crown Prosecution Service
announced that it would release details of the advice it gave to police
in the late 1990s which enabled Cyril Smith to escape prosecution. It
would first take steps to protect the identities of the victims, a
statement added.
Former home secretary Leon Brittan should
reveal what he knows about a dossier making claims of a paedophile ring
involving Westminster figures, an MP who has investigated historic sex
abuse has said.
The former Cabinet minister, now a Tory peer, should "share his
knowledge" about the file which was passed to the Home Office while he
was in charge, according to Labour's Simon Danczuk who has investigated
claims of abuse by ex-MP Cyril Smith.
Mr Danczuk claimed that politics was the "last refuge of child sexual
abuse deniers" and there was a view that "we should sweep it under the
carpet".
The Rochdale MP claimed "there is pressure applied whether I name
people or not" as he appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Mr Danczuk, who called for a "Hillsborough-style" over-arching
inquiry into the issue, said t he police and local authorities were
changing the way they dealt with the issue and the media was keen to
investigate cases.
"But in terms of politics I think there is a continual view that we
should sweep it under the carpet, that we shouldn't speak about it, that
we shouldn't name people, that there shouldn't be a discussion about
what's gone on in terms of child sex abuse.
"There's pressure applied to people," he added. "Of course there is
pressure applied in terms of whether I name people or not, of course
there is."
Mr Danczuk, whose book on Smith's activities detailed a series of
accusations of sexual abuse by the Liberal politician against young
boys, said that arrests were "imminent" in an investigation at a
residential school linked to the former MP.
But he claimed that Smith had been protected by people "higher up the
food chain" in the networks he belonged to, and claimed the former
Rochdale MP had attended a south-west London guest house at the centre
of allegations of abuse.
"He attended Elm Guest House, we know that, the Metropolitan Police
have confirmed that. I spoke to a victim he abused at Elm Guest House.
"There were other high profile figures that it is alleged attended Elm Guest House."
Mr Danczuk said Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens "produced a dossier in the
1980s which he presented to the home secretary about the Paedophile
Information Exchange (Pie), about paedophiles operating a network within
and around Westminster".
He added: "The home secretary was Sir Leon Brittan and I think it
would be helpful if he stepped forward and shared his thoughts on where
that dossier is.
Today's guilty verdict marks the end of a six-decade career that brought Harris global fame and an international following
December 1967: Rolf Harris puts his ear to an elephant's trunk at London Zoo
Rolf Harris presented himself as a lovable family entertainer, bringing him global fame and fortune.
A career spanning six decades made him rich beyond his dreams, as he was adored by millions of fans worldwide.
His stardom and prestige was so high he was chosen by courtiers to
paint the Queen in Buckingham Palace and also sang with rock royalty the
Beatles.
But his jovial public character hid a dark secret. He was a serial
sex abuser of women and young girls too afraid to complain about a
deviant celebrity who heaped misery on them but seemed untouchable.
That Rolf Harris could be another entertainer, like Jimmy Savile, using celebrity status to abuse young women, was unimaginable.
During his seven week trial Harris’s loyal following remained in
denial. They were not prepared to believe he was capable of such
disgusting behaviour. But, a jury of six men and six women were
convinced by the overwhelming evidence of serial abuse and found Harris
guilty.
Looking back, some of those fans, will remember their favourite
entertainer telling Piers Morgan of his “guilt” over neglecting his wife
Alwen and daughter Bindi.
Getty
Queen Elizabeth II greets artist Rolf Harris and Kylie
Minogue backstage during the Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham
Palace
With hindsight it is clear that his feelings of remorse over his
relationships had a far deeper meaning. He could have been agonising
over years of secret affairs and even child abuse.
His twisted double life heaped misery on his victims, believing fame
would deny them the platform to complain about his deviant ways.
Harris was born in 1930 in the sleepy town of Bassendean in Perth,
Western Australia, to parents Cromwell and Marge, both originally from
small Welsh mining communities before individually settling in
Australia.
He described his childhood as“idyllic”, spending days swimming naked
with pals in the River Swan behind the house Cromwell built out of
second-hand materials.
By the age of 16, he was junior swimming champion of Australia,
making him a local hero in the tiny community on the edge of the
Australian bush.
Brimming with confidence, his artistic talents blossomed and in 1952,
after a brief spell working in an asbestos mine, he headed to Britain
to study at the prestigious City and Guilds of London Art School.
Mirrorpix
Rolf Harris, drawing sketches as he entertains children at Albert Dock, Liverpool in 1986
A year later he was working for the BBC performing a regular
ten-minute cartoon drawing section with a puppet called “Fuzz”. He later
became the only entertainer to work for both the Beeb and ITV when
commercial television was introduced in 1955.
Rolf met his wife, Alwen, a Welsh-born sculptress and jeweller, at
the Royal Academy of Arts, where they were both exhibiting paintings.
They married in 1958, with a dog as a bridesmaid.
In 1959 when television was first introduced in Australia, Rolf was
headhunted by Australian networks and became a household name.
He hit the big time in the same year with his famous rendition of the
song Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, with the Beatles singing backing
vocals and later appearing with him on BBC radio.
He described the next three years as “the happiest of my life” but
the long hours and constant touring had a severe effect on his marriage.
Rolf and Alwen returned to London in 1963 and a year later had their
daughter Bindi, named after Harris’ favourite town in Western Australia.
But as Harris’ star rose he spent more time away, leading his devoted
wife to spiral into depression, losing her hair to alopecia, and later
becoming suicidal due to her husband’s constant absence.
It wasn’t until 30 years later that the painter found her diary in a pile of rubbish.
“I feel like killing myself, I am so bored,” she had written. “My
days are filled with such emptiness. Please take me away from here.”
He was travelling the world and doing as he pleased - a far cry from
the show of unity he presented to the cameras as he walked hand in hand
with wife and daughter outside London’s Southwark Crown Court during his
six week trial.
Mirrorpix
Cilla Black 23.12.1963
He was abusing young girls under the guise of his lovable persona that saw him awarded an MBE in 1968.
But his perversions could not be masked and around the same time he
openly groping a young girl who asked him for an autograph at a
Portsmouth leisure centre after giving her a“Rolfie hug”.
She was just seven or eight at the time.
The self-proclaimed “weird fish” never hid his fondness for young
girls, often satisfying his paedophile tendencies through a veil of
goofy awkwardness.
Between 1975 and 1976, he indecently assaulted a 14-year-old girl by
grabbing her backside at an It’s A Knockout tournament in Cambridge.
Harris denied being there until video evidence was played at his trial of him showing him entertaining the crowd.
Two years later he was made an OBE, however, his tactics remained the
same, blatantly approaching young women and girls on the premise he was
a harmless funny man.
A cameraman who worked with Harris on a number of corporate projects
in Australia also recalled his “infatuation” with young women.
But the line between flirtation and chauvinism was often blurred, no
more so when in Melbourne in 1978 after a female reporter asked a
question, he retorted: “How would you like the get your clothes off and
sit here for a while?”
His sexual appetite hit a snag when he was left ridiculed by a
beautiful backing singer called Glo who got her revenge after he had
spent months sexually harassing her on tour.
After publicly harassing her for weeks, the young singer fronted
Harris by revealing his manhood in front of a shocked dressing room.
In his book Harris confessed: “I turned seven consecutive shades of
red. Not surprisingly, I stopped flirting with pretty young women and
embarrassing them in public. Glo had given me a taste of my own
medicine.”
Despite the incident Harris continued to sexually assault women and
children for many decades after the incident without ever being
challenged.
Getty
Rolf Harris with his bride to be sculptress Alwen Hughes in 1985
His time on the road led to him spending “more time with total
strangers” than with his family, and touring from town to town provided
the perfect cover for his lecherous ways.
Indeed, at his trial he confessed to sexually admiring a 13-year-old
bikini clad friend of his daughter’s while in Hawaii on holiday in the
1978. The girl claimed Harris groped her as she came out of the shower.
This was the start of a string of assaults by Harris as he abused her
over the next 16 years, after training her to “perform like a pet”.
The woman, now 49 but just 15 at the time Harris began molesting her,
told how the star psychologically tormented her for years leading to
her abusing alcohol as an escape.
A year later in 1986 Harris groped 14-year-old Australian Tonya Lee when she was in Britain with a Sydney based theatre group.
PA
Tonya Lee
The predator met the star stuck youngsters in a London pub where he
honed in on the teenager, beckoning her to sit on his lap and again
cornering her outside a toilet before groping her.
In recent years, Harris, who amassed a fortune of £11million as one
of Australia’s most successful entertainers, proclaimed to regret the
effect his years of womanising and affairs had had on his family.
After watching a recording of tearful Alwen speaking of her
abandonment, Harris told interviewer Piers Morgan: “Guilty on all
counts, your honour. I regret the time I missed with Bindi growing up. I
avoid things, I steer around things, like my father.”
And in another interview, Harris hinted at his life of shame, saying:
“I’ve done my fair share of awful things in my time. I have the same
urges and desires as anyone and there were times when I was younger when
I found myself riding roughshod over other people's feelings.”
But even old friends believe it was just part of the act.
Getty
December 1967: Rolf Harris puts his ear to an elephant's trunk at London Zoo
Old pal Ted Egan said: “He’s doing the Rolf Harris show 24 hours a day.
“Everything that seems to be spur of the moment he has rehearsed 50 times. Everyone is a potential member of his audience.”
The aged entertainer, attempted to play to the audience until the
end, even having to be chided by the prosecution counsel for singing to
the jury under cross examination.
Now the man Britain adopted as their own and who won world acclaim
for his unique brand of family entertainment will be remembered first as
a predatory sex pervert.
Published:
16:05, 30 June 2014
| Updated:
16:05, 30 June 2014
The jury in Rolf Harris's child sex
abuse trial didn't get to hear from a further nine women who claim the
entertainer harassed them, including one alleged victim who says she was
groped on live TV.
Another
potential witness claims she was working as a barmaid at a party for the
broadcaster Michael Parkinson when Harris kissed her in front of his
wife Alwen.
The prosecution
wanted to call seven of the women as bad character witnesses alongside
six others who did give evidence during the eight-week trial in London.
But most were ruled inadmissible during legal argument at Southwark Crown Court. Justice
Nigel Sweeney didn't allow jurors to see footage of one English TV
presenter who claimed Harris put his hand up her skirt while she was
interviewing him live on air in the mid-1990s.
During
pre-trial legal argument, prosecutor Sasha Wass QC said watching the
footage it was clear from the woman's reaction what was going on just
out of shot.
In 2005, another woman was working as a barmaid at Berkshire pub where a party was being held for Parkinson.
Harris, in front of his wife, allegedly grabbed the young woman as she was clearing up and started kissing her.
A decade earlier, in the mid-1990s, the star attended a fete at Bray where he's lived since the early 1980s.
He
was allegedly in a tent signing autographs when he told a 13 or
14-year-old girl he liked her jumper and wanted to see what was under
it.
In 1991, another
potential bad character witness met Harris during an art class in
Belfast when she asked if she could interview him for the BBC.
With children and a camera crew watching the artist allegedly pressed himself against her and stuck his tongue into her mouth.
"She
felt disgusted and dirty and described him as opportunistic and
predatory," Ms Wass told the court during pre-trial legal argument.
In 2001, a 20-year-old woman who looked younger than that allegedly met Harris at an art competition at Kensington Olympia.
The celebrity pinched her bottom as they posed for a photograph, the court but not the jury heard.
She
looked at him angrily, but he simply shrugged. A 24-year-old with
psychological problems was allegedly abused in 1999 when she met Harris
while on holiday with friends.
"In
the villa he was staying in he came upon her in the garden, put his
hand inside her skirt and touched her buttocks," Ms Wass said.
"On another occasion he came to where she was staying, went into her room while she was having a nap and got into bed with her."
The court heard he digitally penetrated her, performed oral sex on her and got her to do the same to him.
Finally, a woman says she met the Australian at a motel near Sydney in 1977.
She was 14 and Harris was visiting with fellow celebrity Harry Butler.
The alleged victim says the man who gave the world the wobble board touched her bottom and declared: "Rolfie deserves a cuddle."
He subsequently followed her to a lift where he held her and touched her breast before she managed to escape.
The jurors further weren't aware that during the trial two Australian DJs went public with allegations against Harris.
Former
Perth radio host Jane Marwick claims the celebrity grabbed her breast
in 2001 while posing for a photo after an interview.
At
the time Ms Marwick thought it was "inappropriate behaviour by a grubby
old man" but said if she'd known Harris allegedly abused people "of
very tender years" she would have taken action.
Former ABC radio host Verity James also alleged Harris groped her in the late 1990s or early 2000s.
"He
kind of pushes you up against a wall in a big hug, grabbing at the
buttocks and rubbing on your breasts," Ms James said in late May.
Harris
on Monday was found guilty of indecently assaulting four women in the
UK between 1968 and 1986. He was convicted on all 12 counts.
Another
six witnesses gave supporting evidence during the trial that they were
harassed in Australia, New Zealand and Malta between 1969 and 1991.
Published:
01:08, 28 June 2014
| Updated:
17:13, 28 June 2014
Police are investigating claims that Leonard Rossiter, pictured, was in a gang of sex attackers
Leonard Rossiter died in his dressing
room at the Lyric Theatre in London where he was starring in Joe Orton’s
black comedy Loot. The squash-playing, keep-fit enthusiast had a heart attack that was sudden and unexpected.
A
unique aspect of the tributes to the much-loved actor and TV sitcom
star was the paucity of wicked anecdotes about him. There were none of
those villainous tales that are normally whispered back-stage about
major stars.
As his
biographer Guy Adams observes, Rossiter approached acting ‘as a job, as
solid and practical as book-keeping or car mechanics’.
Now, 30 years after the actor’s death in 1984 at the age of just 57, an anecdote of unique wickedness has finally emerged.
What’s
more, it is as potentially destructive to the memory of the star of
TV’s Rising Damp and The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin as an
unexploded bomb discovered under the floorboards — and just as
distressing to his 87-year-old widow Gillian Raine.
In
the continuing fall-out of the sordid Jimmy Savile affair, a
66-year-old fellow actor is alleging that in 1968, when he was 18 and
working as an extra on a BBC2 drama in which Rossiter was starring, he
was sexually abused twice while an ‘excited’ Rossiter watched.
They
were making the ground-breaking sci-fi story The Year Of The Sex
Olympics. It depicted a dystopian world in which the media is controlled
by an elite few who keep the masses docile by pumping out pornography
and reality-TV shows.
As
part of the plot, the young actor — as well as a girl extra, also
allegedly attacked — was covered in gold paint. He claims that he
endured two rape attempts by three men in a rehearsal room, and was
shouting for help as Rossiter looked on.
‘He obviously found it a big turn-on,’ he has claimed. ‘He was watching with glee.’
The claim is being investigated
by police officers from Operation Yewtree who are working their way
through hundreds of post-Savile allegations of historic abuse by BBC
stars. Some famous names have been jailed, but there has been only mixed
success in obtaining convictions.
In
the case of Rossiter — an allegation that dates back 46 years — they
will interview up to ten former BBC staff involved in the drama’s
production.
Unsurprisingly,
friends of the family are appalled that three decades after his death,
attempts are being made to bring about what one describes as ‘the rise
and fall of Leonard Rossiter’.
Messages
of support and goodwill have been pouring into the little terraced
house near Chelsea’s football ground in Fulham, southwest London, into
which Leonard and Gillian (his second wife) moved just two years before
his death, and where she — also an actress — still lives.
‘It’s
terrible for Gillian to have to go through all this when Len isn’t here
to defend himself,’ declares one friend of the family. ‘It’s hardly
justice. Everyone’s very upset.’
One of the complainants claimed the abuse
occurred on the set of a drama, which was filmed at BBC Television
Centre, pictured, in 1968
Inevitably, that includes the couple’s
only child, Camilla, 41, who is married and lives in Kingston,
Surrey, and is a stalwart protector of her father’s memory.
‘Camilla
is very angry,’ says one close figure. ‘Her dad’s memory means
everything to her. She can hardly believe that anyone can even think he
behaved like that. He wasn’t a pop star or a disc jockey, but a serious
actor, for goodness sake. His family was everything.’
The
family ethic was certainly important to Liverpool-born Rossiter, who
began his working life as an insurance clerk. His father, a barber and
illicit bookie, was killed by a bomb during the Second World War while on duty
as a volunteer ambulance driver, and young Len’s pay helped out his
widowed mother.
But he
reached a point where, he said, he was ‘bored out of my mind’ with the
insurance business and chucked it in to become an actor. Ever a
perfectionist, he took elocution lessons which resulted in the clear and
concise voice that made his characters so real.
Outside
acting, his passions were his family, good wine, sport (as a boy he was
a spin bowler for Lancashire Colts), Everton FC and playing chess
against an electronic machine.
But as a star, he lived a quiet life, finding fame ‘a bit tiring’.
The reason was he could never avoid people identifying him with his roles and calling out to him in the street.
He
had created two of the finest TV characters of the times, and the
public recognised him as Rigsby, the lecherous, snivelling landlord of
Rising Damp, and as Reggie Perrin, the disillusioned executive who fakes
his own death and returns in disguise to take up his old job.
People
also loved the smugly self-satisfied bore he played in those memorable
Cinzano advertisements, soaking Joan Collins on a passenger jet. Collins
wept bitterly at his death. ‘He was such a wonderful man,’ she said.
The
incidents of alleged abuse in 1968 predated his fame by several years,
although he was already a character actor, having not been born with
conventional, leading-man good looks. But women found his energy and
humour very attractive – in his early acting years one of his conquests
was a young Judi Dench.
He
met his first wife, the actress Josephine Tewson — best known as
Hyacinth Bucket’s long-suffering neighbour in Keeping Up Appearances —
while both worked at Salisbury Rep.
Their
1959 marriage lasted a mere three years, Ms Tewson lamenting that in
their brief time together ‘Len was always going off with other women and
being uncaring’. He married Gillian in 1964, and apart from describing
their marriage as ‘up and down’ — in other words, fairly normal — she
has shed no light on any problems they may have had in their private
life, certainly not his weakness for other women.
If
Leonard Rossiter was indulging in extra-marital activities, they were
carried on with remarkable care and discretion on both sides. Certainly,
the acting world was never buzzing with any gossip.
As
for his years at the BBC, the only gossip was about him being
professionally ‘driven’, a demanding ‘monster’ and a ‘tetchy
perfectionist’. Nothing very sexy there.
But
in 2002, 18 years after his death, a letter fell on to his widow
Gillian’s doormat, the contents of which were every bit as shocking, say
friends, as the allegations now being made against her late husband.
The
writer of the letter was Sue MacGregor, the Radio 4 presenter whose
measured voice and unflappable professionalism have been familiar to
listeners (particularly during her years on the Today programme) across
middle-England for getting on for half a century.
Her
reason for writing was that she had written her autobiography, and she
felt she had to warn Gillian that she intended to describe (in some
detail, as it turned out) her secret affair with Leonard that had gone
on for five years until his death.
It
transpired that at the height of his fame, in 1979, she had interviewed
him on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. The next day he phoned and suggested
they meet for a drink.
‘I
was intrigued,’ wrote MacGregor in her book. ‘Could this be simply a
postscript to our meeting of the day before . . . Or was he interested
in something more?’
This
was the beginning of an extraordinarily clandestine affair, their
meetings always taking place at MacGregor’s Primrose Hill apartment.
Being instantly recognisable, whenever he climbed the steps to her front
door, Rossiter covered his face with a white handkerchief as though he
was blowing his nose.
As for
MacGregor, she said she wondered what her neighbours were making of
this gentleman caller who always seemed to have a cold.
It
was a regular, farcical scene that might have come straight out of a
Rossiter sitcom, but this was serious. MacGregor, then aged 37 to his
52, found him ‘quick, clever, funny and an enthusiastic bon viveur . . .
I found him immensely attractive’.
From
the start, however, he had made it plain he would never leave Gillian.
Meanwhile, MacGregor, as with her close relationship with television
inquisitor Sir Robin Day, assured him she was ‘a determinedly
single soul’ — as she still is today at the age of 72.
But she was in love with him, admitting: ‘I did see other men from time to time but none of them seemed quite as attractive.’
For
MacGregor, the secret visits were not enough, but, despite her tears,
he could give no more. So she accepted the limitations.
Rossiter
continued to visit her once a week, right up to his death. ‘I’m not
proud of my relationship with Leonard,’ she said when promoting her
memoir. ‘But I don’t regret it, because I loved him.’
Asked
this week for a view on the allegations being made against Rossiter,
MacGregor said: ‘I’m going to be really boring and say “No Comment”. I
had hoped that [our affair] had, by now — if I may use the
expression — gone to bed.’
Gillian
has never commented on the broadcaster’s revelations. And the couple’s
daughter, Camilla, who, at the time was as ‘horribly shocked’ as her
mother, has loyally dismissed the saga of her father’s infidelity as
something simply made up by Sue MacGregor in order to sell her book.
Camilla
remembers him as a devoted father who enjoyed playing games and taking
her to the park, a man so worried by reports of crashes involving school
buses that he refused to let her join a school coach trip to Hastings
but drove her there himself — and waited all day until it was time to
bring her home.
So what does she think about these abuse claims against her father? ‘When
someone’s dead,’ she says, ‘people can say what they like about them,
can’t they? And the person can’t say anything to defend themselves.’
BRITISH security services infiltrated and
funded the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange in a covert
operation to identify and possibly blackmail establishment figures, a
Home Office whistleblower alleges.
A number of allegations of child sex abuse emerged after MP Cyril Smith's death [REX]
The
former civil servant has told detectives investigating the activities
of paedophiles in national politics that the Metropolitan Police’s
Special Branch was orchestrating the child-sex lobbying group in the
late 1970s and early 1980s.
The whistleblower,
who has spoken exclusively to the Sunday Express, says he was also
warned off asking why such a notorious group was being handed government
money.
It emerged late last year that PIE was
twice gave amounts of £35,000 in Home Office funding
between 1977 and
1980, the £70,000 total equivalent to over £400,000 in today’s money.
Those
details surfaced only after the whistleblower highlighted his concerns
to campaigning Labour MP Tom Watson and his revelations have triggered
an ongoing Home Office inquiry into why the cash was given to PIE which
was abolished in 1985 after a number of prosecutions.
Until
now, speculation about the grant has centred on Clifford Hindley, the
late Home Office manager who approved the payments. However, the
whistleblower told the Sunday Express he thought higher and more
sinister powers were at play.
He has given a
formal statement to that effect to detectives from Operation Fernbridge,
which is looking into allegations of historic sex abuse at the Elm
Guest House in south-west London.
At that time, questioning anything to do with Special
Branch, especially within the Home Office, was a ‘no-no’.
Mr X, whistleblower
PIE, now
considered one of the most notorious groups of the era, had gained
respectability in political circles. Its members are said to have
included establishment figures, and disgraced Liberal MP Cyril Smith was
a friend of founder member Peter Righton.
In
1981, Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens used Parliamentary privilege to name Sir
Peter Hayman, the deputy director of MI6, as a member of PIE and an
active paedophile. In 1983 Mr Dickens gave the Home Office a dossier of
what he claimed was evidence of a paedophile network of “big, big names,
people in positions of power, influence and responsibility”. The Home
Office says the dossier no longer exists.
Whistleblower
Mr X, whose identity we have agreed to protect, became a very senior
figure in local government before retiring a few years ago. In the late
1970s and early 1980s, he was a full-time consultant in the Home
Office’s Voluntary Services Unit run by Clifford Hindley.
In
1979 Mr X was asked to examine a funding renewal application for PIE,
but he became concerned because the organisation’s goal of seeking to
abolish the age of consent “conflicted” with the child protection
policies of the Department of Health and Social Security and asked for a
meeting with Mr Hindley, his immediate boss.
Elm House in London where it is alleged child abuse incidents took place [MARK KEHOE]
Mr
X recalled: “I raised my concerns, but he told me that I was to drop
them. Hindley gave three reasons for this. He said PIE was an
organisation with cachet and that its work in this field was respected.
“He
said this was a renewal of an existing grant and that under normal Home
Office practice a consultant such as myself would not be involved in
the decision-making process.
“And he said PIE
was being funded at the request of Special Branch which found it
politically useful to identify people who were paedophiles. This led me
not to pursue my objections. At that time, questioning anything to do
with Special Branch, especially within the Home Office, was a ‘no-no’.
“I
was under the clear belief that I was being instructed to back off and
that his reference to Special Branch was expected to make me to do so.
“Hindley
didn’t give me an explicit explanation of what Special Branch would do
with information it gleaned from funding PIE, but I formed the belief
that it was part of an undercover operation or activity. I was aware a
lot of people in the civil service or political arena had an interest in
obtaining information like that which could be used as a sort of
blackmail.”
He said he asked for a file the Home
Office kept on PIE, but his request was refused. However, he was
certain then Tory Home Office Minister Tim Raison, who died in 2011,
must have signed the 1980 funding application.
Mr
X has given a formal written statement to the inquiry set up last year
into former Home Office links with PIE but has refused to meet the
inquiry in person because he fears “repercussions” under the Official
Secrets Act.
Yesterday Tom Watson said: “The
whole sorry business makes it absolutely imperative the Home Secretary
bows to the will of the 114 MPs demanding a full, fearless public
investigation into child sexual abuse.”
Special
Branch was an integral part of the intelligence service gathering
intelligence on spies and political threats to the state. In 2005 it
merged with the anti-terrorism branch to form a Counter Terrorism
Command.
Police are now investigating claims Savile was involved in the death of a child
The report reveals the full scale of the shocking crimes of Jimmy Savile
The sickening extent of Jimmy Savile’s depravity was laid bare
yesterday as damning reports revealed the pervert was free to roam
hospitals abusing victims at will – even targeting the dead, writes Andrew Gregory.
Police
have also launched an investigation into shock claims the former DJ was
involved in the death of a child who he was allegedly spotted dragging
away at a children’s home.
The mass of NHS papers revealed vile
Savile boasted about having sex with corpses in a mortuary, posed with
bodies and wheeled them around at night, stole glass eyes from the dead
and made them into rings and abused teenage patients in their beds as
they recovered from surgery.
And it is said the paedophile
targeted at least 103 men, women, boys and girls aged between five and
75 for his attacks in hospitals and state institutions, which included
three rapes.
Savile preyed on the vulnerable almost to the end – his last known victim was in 2009 when he was 82.
The
allegations he was involved in the death of a child came from a witness
who said he saw the TV presenter and a friend with the girl at
Roecliffe Manor children’s home in Leicestershire during the 60s.
A
report published by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust said:
“The Informant stated that he witnessed a girl, who he believes was
called April or Elizabeth, being dragged across the garden at Roecliffe
Manor by ‘Jimmy’ and another man.
“She appeared to be in a stupor. The next day the informant was told by the matron that this girl had died.
The
paper concludes it could not corroborate the claim and said it had
found “no reference to the death of a child at Roecliffe Manor”.
But Leicestershire Police confirmed it is probing the claims.
A
spokesman said: “We have received the report on Roecliffe Manor and
started an investigation to determine if abuse took place and if so to
what extent.”
The home was shut shortly after the alleged incident.
In
February it was revealed Savile’s DNA was used to see if he was linked
to a string of major unsolved crimes, including murder.
The NHS
investigators found he targeted at least 103 victims as he roamed
through 28 hospitals across Britain, including Leeds, Broadmoor and
Stoke Mandeville, abusing as hepleased.
He bragged about having sex with corpses at Leeds General Infirmary.
A
former nurse at Broadmoor said Savile told her about his appalling
activities at the Yorkshire hospital, where he was a charity fundraiser
and volunteer porter.
He said he would “muck about” posing with dead bodies of men and women together before taking photographs.
The
nurse added: “I was a little bit upset because I had no concept, in
those days, of… while I’d heard of necrophilia… but I didn’t
understand what it meant.”
It is claimed former Top of the Pops
frontman Savile told her he sexually assaulted the bodies as well,
something he sickeningly dubbed “garamoosh”.
A former patient at
Barnet General Hospital in North London said nurses told her in 1983
that Savile “liked to have sex with dead bodies”.
The Jim’ll Fix It host also boasted about making jewellery from glass eyes that he removed from their bodies.
One
witness told investigators she asked him about his “gross, big silver
rings”. He told her: “D’you know what they are? They are glass eyes from
dead bodies in Leeds mortuary where I work and I love working there,
and I wheel the dead bodies around at night and I love that.”
Another
witness, who was employed at the hospital, said: “I do remember seeing
this ring he had on that looked like an eyeball and… and I must’ve
mentioned it to him. He said: ‘It’s made from the eyeball of a dead
friend’.”
Savile, who died aged 84 in 2011, has openly talked
about his interest in the dead during media interviews over the years.
He told one interviewer how he spent five days with his mother’s corpse.
Chairwoman
of the independent investigation, Dr Sue Proctor, confirmed Savile had
“expressed an interest in the dead” and said he “would take bodies to
the morgue and carried out sex acts on them”.
The probe team
interviewed more than 200 people and reviewed at least 1,300 documents
covering the 50 years Savile was associated with the LGI.
It emerged 43 of his attacks took place in public areas such as wards, corridors and offices.
But
starstruck NHS staff allowed him free rein to sexually abuse patients
and hospital workers “didn’t want to hear or believe” what his tormented
young victims were saying, the report said.
After the report was
published, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive Julian
Hartley apologised to the victims and thanked them “for being courageous
enough to tell their stories”.
roadmoor Hospital chief executive
Steve Shrubb yesterday told those targeted by the sex beast: “My words
cannot heal the injuries that Jimmy Savile has inflicted on you through
his callous abuse of your vulnerability.
“But I can offer my most sincere and heartfelt apology on behalf of Broadmoor Hospital.”
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt apologised unreservedly on behalf of the Government for letting down patients molested.
He
said: “Savile was a callous, opportunistic, wicked predator who abused
and raped individuals, many of them patients and young people who
expected and had a right to expect to be safe.
"We will urge all
NHS organisations to look carefully at anyone mentioned in these
reports, and of course the police will look at the evidence against any
individuals.”
"The total number of allegations relating to Savile’s sexual abuse now stands at more than 500 victims.
"One was even locked in a room by staff after she became upset by the pervert groping her legs and inner high.
Investigators at the LGI found staff were told about some of the incidents but no allegations reached senior managers.
The
inquiry into his activities at the hospital after he started his
association in 1960 included the testimonies of 60 people who gave
accounts of their experiences of Savile to investigators.
The Leeds team said 19 of those who came forward were under 16 and the age range was five to 75.
They said the majority were teenagers but 19 victims were staff – all women.
The inquiry panel said Savile started working on the hospital radio service.
He then became a regular celebrity visitor, a fundraiser and,from 1968, a volunteer porter.
It said he enjoyed unrestricted access to the hospital as he raised £3.5million through his charity activities.
He
had access to keys to various departments, had a series of offices in
the hospital and even had access to the mortuary, the panel said.
But it was not just in the distant past that the former radio host struck.
In 2009, he was chatting to a 43-year-old woman on a train between Leeds and London and put his hand up her skirt.
And neither was his perversion limited to hospitals and children’s homes.
He is said to have struck in TV studios, in his car and while on the road.
Last year Scotland Yard said it had recorded 214 crimes in 28 police force areas against Savile.
