Was Blackmail the Reason the BBC Capitulated?

by Anna Raccoon on July 29, 2014

Alice, the daughter of a tobacconist, has been dating Frank, a young up and coming detective at Scotland Yard. After successfully ditching Frank one evening on a date, Alice instead meets up with a young male artist who she really wanted to be with that evening. After going up to the artist’s studio apartment, he tried to rape her. She ended up stabbing him to death in self defence, after which she tried to wipe out any evidence of being in his apartment. Frank ends up being one of the detectives assigned to the case, and he recognises the dead man as the person Alice sneaked off with after she ditched him the night before. Frank decides to hide evidence that implicates Alice, from his fellow detectives. He confronts Alice with it to see what she says. But before she can answer, a man named Tracy implies that he knows what happens and blackmails the pair in return for his silence. Eventually, Frank learns that Tracy is a wanted criminal. So Frank comes up with the idea of pinning the murder on Tracy. The film’s questions become whether such a move will actually work, and if it does, whether Alice’s conscience will let her allow an innocent man to be framed.

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The 1929 film Blackmail is intriguing on many levels – not least it’s sociological implications. A Scotland Yard detective falsifying evidence, hiding a crime and then seeking to frame a “known criminal” for his own personal reasons. So much for the notions of an “old order” wherein Dixon of Dock Green always did his duty.

However, perhaps the most illuminating thing about the movie is the dramatic manner in which it deals with the whole issue of sexual assault. To read the UK news media of the 21^st Century, one seems to be being told that until October 2012, women would be assaulted in plain sight and be powerless to resist – indeed these women might not even realise they were being assaulted, so hypnotised by Male Hegemony were they – and even if they did protest, nobody would pay their feeble cries of resistance the slightest heed. Enough of the irony. I am told irony never works on the internet. Perhaps this explains the sometimes simple-minded nature of many of the arguments one finds on the medium. Be that as it may, BLACKMAIL is on my mind.

Back in July 2013, I thought I’d discovered a Savile Revelation:

More than one commentator has assured me that the Fiona we watched on Exposure was the daughter of a senior BBC executive.

At the time, I looked back into all the many news media that I could find, and I could see no mention that any of the Duncroft girls had a father who was a senior producer at the BBC. I thought this was something new. But, I was wrong. It had appeared in a mischievous piece penned by Andrew O’Hagan in November 2012, about how the BBC had always sheltered paedophiles – at least I think that’s what he was on about – he’s one of those very clever “literary” folk, as demonstrated by the site hosting his article.

Did Duncroft, a well-equipped approved school for “intelligent emotionally disturbed girls” in leafy Surrey, really require the patronage of “Uncle” Jimmy Savile?’ Dan Davies asks in his unpublished book about Savile: Many of the 25 or so girls in its care at any one time came from comfortable backgrounds and included the daughters of ambassadors and BBC producers.

Some folks were better at noticing things than me. India Knight noticed, but nobody seemed very interested. She only got one retweet.

The newspapers became full of stories about BBC Paedophile Rings but nowhere was there any suggestion that the girls at Duncroft included the daughters of BBC Producers. The ITV programme that officially lay at the very heart of the entire media cavorting, ‘Exposure’, never mentioned this fact either, even though it included interviews with former BBC producers and a long interview with at least one woman whose father has since been pin-pointed as the producer of the long-running BBC show, The Navy Lark.

A few Blogposts ago I suggested that the BBC management were actually part of the media/legal process in promoting the Savile Allegations to pass unchallenged. However a doubt about their motivation still rankled within me about quite why the Corporation had bent itself to the will of ACPO/NSPCC to the degree it had. The BBC’s position as part of “the Establishment” and their wish to comply with the will of the UK judicial bodies was a fairly good reason, but on the other hand they seemed to have a lot to lose too. Their willingness to coast along with the stories about juvenile sexual abuse in their dressing-rooms perhaps laid them open to possible legal claims for damages, but of course the position adopted by Entwistle and Patten was that these events were engendered by rogue Light Entertainers. There might be some vicarious liability, but no moral liability.

Imagine that the “BBC executives” of today were given to understand by the “investigating authorities” that the juveniles assaulted in those dressing-rooms were actually the daughters of “BBC executives” of yesterday however?

Nothing much more needed to be said did it?

The other allegations were bad enough but imagine a BBC hierarchy who were made aware that the girl’s own fathers might be involved too and those fathers were BBC Producers… essentially Executive managers of the BBC itself. How would the great British public respond to that revelation? It’s easy to see that a deal might be brokered – an unspoken one of course. If the BBC agreed not to defend their Light Entertainers, then the “Powers-that-be” would leave the ‘BBC Producers’ out of the story? Was this the Blackmail that would allow Jimmy Savile to be thrown to the Fleet Street Allegators? The price was Silence on both sides?

There never was any mention of this aspect that linked the ‘powerless’ girls at Duncroft to the BBC in such a monumentally direct way. Even Exposure NEVER mentioned it and the massed media made no use of this aspect of the story either.

However, it was a known fact wasn’t it? Dan Davies knew about and, through him, so did Andrew O’Hagan and anyone else who knew Dan must have known mustn’t they? That list certainly included Mark Williams-Thomas.

It seems quite likely that it was in fact Mark Williams-Thomas who had told Dan Davies about this angle, at their meeting in the March or April of 2012, as revealed by Dan himself in his Esquire article of 2013.

How did Mark Williams-Thomas know? Well, he would have been told by Meiron Jones. In the Pollard Report, the fact that at least one BBC producer was in fact the father of one of the Duncroftees was actually redacted from that earlier Newsnight research. Why?

But, why did Meirion Jones never raise the matter of the Duncroft girls having fathers who were actually BBC Producers? He has been primarily responsible for reducing the BBC to a rump of ACPO/NSPCC appeasers. Why did he not want to twist the knife even further into the gut of his hated journalistic parent?

What about Liz MacKean? Unlike Meirion she no longer relied on the BBC for her daily bread after resigning in the fall-out. She could not only have wreaked further revenge on the Corporation but quite possibly got paid for doing so, by the same Channel that financed her programme about another dead bloke from the 1970’s. But not a word from Liz about this amazing fact that the Duncroft victim[s] had father[s] who were BBC Producers!!

If not those two, what about that Freelance favourite Miles Goslett? He was everywhere. Ruth, my informant from a while back sent me a snippet from one of her emails from when Miles was hunting down the story as well, that emphasises what an eager beaver he was.

Miles (bloody) Goslett phoned AGAIN this morning and although I sent him a blunt email saying NO! He asked for your telephone number, I did not give it to him but I have agreed that if he has a paper to sell this story ‘outing Newsnight’ I am NOT prepared to go on record saying anything… I told Goslett that NO ONE will ratify his article and to drop it and not to worry as Journalists are around Duncroft girls, like bees ’round a honey pot. I do hope no one talks to anyone else. I know of, The Independent, The Sun, Sky News and Newsweek. to name but a few!! Goslett said this morning that he is in contact with ITV and that he knows the transmission date….. I did not say anything to him so I don’t know. He also said that he had helped Mark with his programme and felt a bit agreived as he has been “dropped like a stone and fed dissinformation”. I told him not to worry as he is not the first person I have heard this story from!! … I do think he is fishing and he asked me to tell MWT that he is not fishing! I just don’t know…..agh! Goslett has phoned a further THREE times today and witheld his number. He has also left a message on my answerphone asking me to contact him and left a mobile phone number. He then left another message asking if I got his email that he sent at 2.30pm. I will paste it here.

So, there you have it… EVERYONE KNEW but NOBODY SAID. Why was that? Well it’s fairly obvious when you think about it. It was all about News Management. If there was some evidence that BBC producers had abused or permitted abuse of their own daughters that would be catastrophic but everyone involved in this scam (except the BBC) knew full well that there was no such evidence. So in fact, the revelation that the Duncroft girls had fathers who were a BBC producers would work diametrically against the story.

If the British Public were made aware that these supposedly under-privileged and powerless young women were in fact the scion of powerful parents who were employed AT the BBC then it would completely undermine the over-arching theme of Elite Power exploiting the weak under-class.

An approach that is totally at odds with the evidence in the Pollard Appendices:

… many of the girls were from the upper echelons…

So this was never mentioned, not by anyone, except an unthinking Andrew O’Hagan, but he made sure to never mention it again. By the time the dopes at the BBC realised that the whole BBC Paedo-Producer angle was just a huge bluff, it was of course all far too late. It already was Apocalypse Then.

Moor Larkin

{ 62 comments… read them below or add one }

oi you July 29, 2014 at 2:56 pm

Good stuff! Keep up the good work. Anyone with an ounze of intelligence has realised there is more to this paedo-witch hunt than meets the eye.

Joe Public July 29, 2014 at 3:08 pm

If it wasn’t “fact”, the Jimmy Savile saga would make implausible fiction.

AndrewWS July 29, 2014 at 3:16 pm

Hmm. But why on earth would BBC producers permit or consent to the abuse of their own daughters? You’re not talking about dysfunctional chavs or addicts here. These were responsible people rising up the ranks of an organisation that many highly educated people would have given their eye teeth to get into.

Anna Raccoon July 29, 2014 at 4:08 pm

I didn’t get the impression that Moor was claiming that BBC producer had ‘permitted or consented’ to the abuse of their own daughter – rather that it would have been rather embarrassing for the BBC to have had it revealed that even the parents of some of these girls were highly placed in the BBC – which we are told ‘turned a blind eye’ to the abuse that ‘they knew’ was going on…….

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 4:56 pm: Further, my point about the blackmail angle is that since paedophilic behaviour is in reality almost always in the family (rather then the TV Studio) the BBC bunnies may have been completely terrified that past senior management might be implicated. My suggestion that there was a tacit and unspoken agreement on all sides derives from the fact that this angle was never ever mentioned again, by anyone, apart from that one leaky O’Hagan article. But because of that article we can KNOW that this angle was indeed known all about.

Don’t forget that this Savile thing was being hatched for eight months. There was ample time for folks involved to test the water quietly amongst their peers, and guage which way to play it, when the button was pressed. They did in fact wait until the final Savile Auction had been held in order to maximise the funds that might be available. That guy who paid £100k for Jim’s silver Roller should be suing someone for creative fraud….

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Jonathan Mason July 29, 2014 at 3:34 pm

There might only have been one (adopted, I think) daughter of a BBC producer at Duncroft, and in any case there seems to have been a change in the population at Duncroft when the administration changed before Savile got there. My guess is that there were insufficient number of “wild child” female offspring of the high and mighty to feed the referral process from the courts to keep the place running according to the original concept of an approved school located in a stately home type environment with a psychiatrist highly involved in the management, and certainly the author of the original televised complaints about Savile does not seem to have come from this elite demographic.

Anna Raccoon July 29, 2014 at 4:05 pm

I don’t think anybody has ever described the Duncroft girls as an ‘elite demographic’ – I have certainly spent a lot of time correcting that mis information on various forums – however, it is an undeniable fact that it was a mixed demographic and some girls came from exceedingly good homes. The criteria was not so much who your parents were as whether you were likely to be able to take advantage of this new notion of further education – the base line was IQ – and that applied to those ‘working class girls’ as much as to ‘upper class’ girls, much as I dislike the terms. IQs being equal, the next base line was – were you the sort of girl who might get her head down and resume study…that certainly did tip the balance in the favour of those who had previously had a ‘good’ education – they had a better track record of studying in the first place.

You are incorrect in your ‘guess’ that it was a lack of high fallutin ‘wild children’ that resulted in the change in the 70s – it was a change in the law which said that everyone up to 16 had to have a full time education – there were no mental health establishments able to provide a full time education, and Duncroft which already had a full time psychiatrist was an obvious choice to come under the auspices of MIND. Hence the Home Office handed it over.

As for your comment regarding ‘stately home type environment’ as though that was a matter of deliberate choice – you are surely aware that virtually every ‘home’ of any type, from Bryn Estyn to Bardardos was situated in a former ‘stately home’ – they were the large buildings that were going ‘begging’ at the time.

I was there in the original intake – and I was most certainly not the ‘wild child’ offspring of any ‘high and mighty’. I was the daughter of a civil engineer, himself brought up by a single mother in Liverpool. There were other girls from every walk of life.

I think, though cannot speak for Moor, is that the point he was making was that revealing that the girls on Exposure included at least one daughter of a highly placed BBC producer, and another of an ambassador, does rather poke a hole in the notion that these were poor vulnerable downtrodden girls with no experience of life who couldn’t stand up for themselves.

From whatever background they came from, they were the sort of girls who had been brave enough to experiment with drugs; the sort of girls who answered their parents back; the sort of girls who had got into trouble at school for arguing with teachers; the sort of girls who had thought nothing of hitchhiking into the wild blue yonder when life had displeased them; and the sort of girls who had experimented with sex when their school friends were still trying to figure out how to tie their own plaits.

Feisty, opinionated, loud mouthed, fearless, reckless, thought we knew it all – but definitely not meek and mild little church mice.

As Ms Jones once said ‘they weren’t all angels’ – too bloody right; we wouldn’t have been there if we had been.

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 4:41 pm

@Jonathan
My main point, and I emphasised it, is that the statements revealed in Pollard are referring to “many of the girls were from the upper echelons” and Andrew O’Hagan is referring to “the daughters of ambassadors and BBC producers” and his information is from the “insider” Dan Davies, who was journo-mates with Williams-Thomas, who was journ-omates with Meirion Jones….. and Miles Goslett knew all of them as did Liz MacKean.

What you need to do Jonathan, is step back from what you know now, and maybe what you would have surmised before, and simply place yourself as if you are a completely innocent Journalist or Policeman being told these stories and trying to right this historical wrong.

So it is not a question of whether the stories are true or likely or whatever – we have been told the mantra we must follow is, “Believe the Victims”….. The victims were saying that these girls were the daughters of the Elites (in many cases) so why did that story get so little mention? Other than the isolated place it popped it’s little head out as I have described it appeared nowhere and certainly Operation Yetwree gave an impression of under-privileged girls getting abused by over-weening celebrity.

A clue: This Blog is sub-titled “a jaundiced view of the mainstream media” – which is why the landlady has so kindly taken an interest in it.

Jonathan Mason July 29, 2014 at 5:26 pm

Well, yeah, but this kind of thing is just propaganda aimed at the naive general public. Believe the alleged victims? No, every case needs to be evaluated on its own merits. In the Rolf Harris case the main accuser may have had a legitimate grievance and the subsidiary accusers may have been liars. Anyone professionally involved in child abuse, investigation crimes, prosecuting, or defending knows this perfectly well. No perhaps I did not know this when I was a schoolboy, but in my mid teens I had the reputation of being “the most cynical boy in the school”, so I tended to question all established conventional beliefs, willy-nilly. At the age of 11 I had conducted a controlled experiment in which I had asked God to strike me dead if he existed and got away with it. The argument that God was too good to strike down an ignorant child never did totally convince me either.

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 5:37 pm: The Blog is not about what you know, or even what I know… It is about what appears to have been known, but was kept quiet.
The Known Unknown as Donald Rumsfeld might have expressed it, if he’d been running the caper….

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Gil July 29, 2014 at 4:48 pm

It looks as if the person who said the head wanted a school of ‘elite’ girls and that many were from the upper echelons might be the same person who claimed to have a double-barrelled knight-of-the-realm father.
https://annaraccoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/fi.jpg

6:15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY5btAYs02c
She doesn’t sound very “posh”. Isn’t there an estuary twang in there? Not that double-barrelled knights-of-the-realm should be assumed to sound posh, but you’d think that a daughter from the same household would tend to sound like the parents.

“She said her father was……………………………………….who was a producer on……”
Journalists would have verified this rather than just assuming it was the case?

Jonathan Mason July 29, 2014 at 5:17 pm

Yes, but the high IQ, as we know now, is much more likely to apply to those who come from literate homes where education is valued. In a country like the UK which was(/is?) extremely class-stratified, this mostly translates into upper echelon children.

There is some evidence that the IQ requirements were relaxed in the local authority era as presumably the local authority catchment area had insufficient high IQ wild children to meet the admission standards.

Of course it would be interesting to know whose idea it was to set up Duncroft in the first place, what the defined need was, why it was funded, and so on. I suspect it was seen as part of the kind of Laingian/A.S. Neill/Bertrand Russell therapeutic community type schooling that was fashionable at the time.

These issues of caring for disturbed children with mental health problems are very difficult. Florida set up two adjacent facilities (boarding school prisons, basically) of 180 beds each, one for children with mental health problems and the other for children with mental health problems PLUS substance abuse problems in multimillion dollar new-build facilities. I was the manager of the health care department of one of them for a couple of years. The cost of providing comprehensive health care plus psychiatric care to this population was astronomical and was one of the contributing factors to the whole enterprise being shut down in less than a decade and the care of the children returned to their local communities.

The multimillion dollar purpose-built complex built in 2001 is now empty and shuttered. There are some very interesting pictures here, though the only thing I can find is the Web page of the construction company that built the place. Otherwise, it might as well never have existed.

http://www.allstateconstruction.com/projects/index.php?project=72&category=3

No word on whether the complex is to be turned into secure luxury condos.

GD July 29, 2014 at 8:32 pm

Must just pop in here that even in a piece I wrote in 2001 (pre-menopause, when my memory was better) I made note of the fact that, at Duncroft, high IQs seemed notably weighted in favour of the middle classes. Truly “working class” girls were rare, but if there were any “elite” I was not aware of it.

Just FYI my father was a mining engineer, born in a council house, my mother was partner in a wallpaper shop with her cousin (and may well have earned more than my father) that was an offshoot of her father’s old business and I was former direct grant pupil at KEHS Edgbaston.

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 8:58 pm

@GD
Yes, it might be that this War of the Words gets a bit…. misleading.
I would imagine a successful BBC producer in the Fifties/Sixties would be a solid member of the Middle Classes of those days.
But the “Middle Classes” were perhaps more elite than they might be nowadays.
A better analogy might be that in military terms he’d be in the Officer’s Mess as opposed to the Sergeant’s.
Here’s Alistair in the BBC scheme of things in 1961, for what it’s worth.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AEktVGtzNgc/UyInYwQ8sII/AAAAAAAAEQM/GOahoV3P4Vo/s1600/image002.jpg

GD July 30, 2014 at 11:48 am

@Moor Larkin – I think even “Officer’s Mess as opposed to the Sergeant’s” was overstating it a bit…plenty of NCOs around…it was just “other ranks” that were a bit thin on the ground. :o)

Let us say, plenty of white collars but precious few blue ones and leave it at that.

Moor Larkin July 30, 2014 at 12:03 pm: @GD
Again, as I tried to reflect to Jonathan Mason, the thrust of this Blog was not so much as an exposition of “the truth” as opposed to an exposition as to the background to the reporters that was being provided by the victims.

The information being fed through was that, the juveniles at Duncroft ” included the daughters of ambassadors and BBC producers.” It is easy to see why the MSM ignored this aspect because they were pursuing the line of Operation Yewtree and the “powerless victims”. However, it is harder to see why the BBC had so little interest in establishing the facts surrounding all of this, and even curiouser that they then felt the need to redact not only the name, but also the fact that the father of one of these victims was a fairly significant BBC Producer. As I have pointed out elsewhere in the comments the BBC also had ample documentation to reveal that contrary to the Yewtree narrative, Savile was not a powerful figure at the BBC at all. In fact one internal memo has a BBC manager referring to his show as “nauseating”.

It’s not that the BBC needed to dispute the victim’s stories, but they explicitly avoided even disputing the police story, which was always a construction rather than an investigation.

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GD July 29, 2014 at 3:57 pm

Objectively, Saville makes an ideal scapegoat:
* Dead
* No wife
* No descendents

Until you actually try and do it – I would bet plenty of those involved (Duncroft, BBC et al) are mentally stitching samplers worded:
“What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive” to insure against ever overlooking that factor again.

(Reading through Andrew O’Hagan, I confess that I do actually remember, not only “Juke Box Jury” but also Jimmy Saville with bi-coloured hair – I would STILL love to know how he kept it parted properly.).

The memories I have of those times operate mostly in the default. Right up to the mid 80s, when I last lived in the West end of London and socialised in rather edgy, former Whitehall circles, there was *NOTHING DEEMED WEIRD OR ABUSIVE ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH A 14 YEAR OLD BOY*. There just wasn’t. The public schools were rife with explosive testosterone. EVERYBODY who was ANYBODY had “done that sort of thing” at school, and while it would not be the “done thing” to continue that into adult life, or even allude to it, nobody felt terribly judgemental about it. The “main thing” was not “letting the side down” by getting caught, and most scrupulously avoided all possibility of such an infraction.

Incidentally, these DO NOT represent my own values, even as a 14 year old girl I would have felt that a 14 year old boy was a child with whom it was inappropriate to be sexual…in the hypothetical event one could find anything sexually appealing about him anyway. Much, MUCH later I learned that, unless outright coercion was involved, 14 year old boys tended to regard such interference as an opportunity rather than an invasion, and were never going to see reason to complain about it.

(Later again I learned of the terrible damage suffered by boys who were coerced and denied validation or voice for so too long.)

…and all the while female sexuality, liberated from any serious danger of unwanted pregnancy has been finding it’s feet and discovering itself. I suspect, in the end, it will evolve into something almost as driven as male sexuality.

In the 70s? Let me take you back in time for a couple of minutes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJFVPxBpezk

Were they marketing that HUGE hit to middle aged pedophiles? Or young teenage girls circa 1968?

Tough one to call…

Ian B July 29, 2014 at 5:03 pm

Incidentally, these DO NOT represent my own values, even as a 14 year old girl I would have felt that a 14 year old boy was a child with whom it was inappropriate to be sexual…in the hypothetical event one could find anything sexually appealing about him anyway.

I think it’s pretty generally observed that teenage girls desire older boyfriends; when I was at school the girls of 13, 14, 15 had boyfriends in the later teens, at least the pretty, well developed girls did. They tend to see boys their own age as juvenile and callow, whereas an 18 year old is a man, with money, maybe a car (or motorbike) etc and a passport to the adult world. That’s the tragedy of being a 14 year old boy really, for most it’s a hellish combination of an almost unbearably intense sex drive, and no outlet for it (at least with anyone else, haha).

Jonathan Mason July 29, 2014 at 5:43 pm

Were they marketing that HUGE hit to middle aged pedophiles? Or young teenage girls circa 1968?

Good find, I must admit I never thought of the implications of that song. It was just a pleasant tune. But how about this one which the BBC refused to play at the time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMddte6yD2w

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Urban myth. I watched Chuck perform that on Top of the Pops in front of a mixed, seated audience, and everyone had a little bell to jingle. That sort of Benny Hill naughtiness was exactly how Britain liked it’s sex, if not it’s Rock & Roll.

Jonathan Mason July 29, 2014 at 6:12 pm

Yes, that was how I saw this at the time. Just harmless innuendo, but note that in the link I posted Berry describes this as a “fourth grade song and step back and think how you might interpret this lyric were you a young copper or coppette brought up to regard Harry Potter as great literature with its underlying theme that evil is lurking everywhere. Play with my ding-a-ling, oh my god, the man is a paedophile out in the open!

I should also point out that in January 1962, Chuck Berry was sentenced to three years in prison for offenses under the Mann Act—he had transported a 14-year-old girl across state lines, presumably for sexual purposes, and yet here was this convict a few years later on Top of the Pops inviting ding-a-ling play. Interesting to know if Savile was the host of the broadcast you saw.

Chris July 30, 2014 at 4:19 pm: How’s about this then? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXJEtUTRI1E

Jimmy introduces the straight performance footage on the surviving 16th November 1972 edition.
All safely in my archive, as it happens.

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GD July 29, 2014 at 9:34 pm

The thing about “Young Girl” is that is was not about innuendo, of mischief…it is a passionate love song and like most love songs…playing to the feelings of your audience…a huge proportion of that audience were teenaged girls, and a huge proportion of those teenaged girls *CHOSE* to pass themselves off a grown women at every opportunity, and if the opportunity never came they dreamed of it anyway.

The fastest way to get dumped by the guys you WANTED to be with was for them to find out you were under 16. I have the PHD in that, being very tall and prematurely developed even from the age of 12 I was being sent into pubs and off licences to buy the drinks for people years older than me. I passed for a grown woman easily, and I *WANTED* to pass for a grown woman.

I had more pressing reasons than most to want to grow up fast, because it was the only lawful escape from the family, but so many girls literally could not wait to grow up in those days…

Ian B July 29, 2014 at 4:57 pm

I don’t think any deep explanation of why the BBC went along with the panic is required. In the current climate, it’s basically obligatory to accept allegations of abuse or be labelled an evil person denying justice to the victims. They really wouldn’t have seen any choice in the matter.

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 5:17 pm

They have largely created the current climate Ian. From memory, the UK were bouncing along on a cloud of post-Olympic bonhommie when the Savile pie was thrown. The BBC did not need to say, “He never done it”… All they needed to do was to calmly point out which studio Clunk-Click was recorded in on October 4th. 8,000 journalists and zero facts.

Lisboeta July 29, 2014 at 6:50 pm

I am entirely in agreement, Moor. However, there just may be another possibility. It would only have needed one of the BBC top-dogs, privy to some salacious gossip about an extant colleague (regardless of whether unfounded or founded) to then decide that the best possible smokescreen for the corporation was a dead celeb. So what if the BBC were thereafter obliged to issue abject mea culpas? At least the MSM’s attention had been suitably diverted/focussed.

My coat is the one with the tinfoil hat in the pocket….

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 9:28 pm

@Liboeta
A tin hat? And there was me thinking you were just pleased to see me.

Apropos the BBC wall of silence: The BBC also had the information available to refute the narrative of Operation Yewtree that Savile was “so powerful” that everyone on the BBC was afraid of him. The BBC released a whole swathe of documentary proof that in fact, far from being in awe of Jimmy, they rather took advantage of him. Here’s Roger Ordish making plain that Jimmy was not only uner-valued but grossly underpaid as well.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-s_Y6i7afcWY/UfLAbS83YhI/AAAAAAAACkQ/MEEphJfy-9E/s1600/image002.jpg
No journalist in the country has made any play of this documentary evidence that not only was Jimmy NOT powerful, the BBC took the piss out of him. It goes without saying that all of the 8,000 BBC journlaists have entirely ignored their own archives.

Mr Ecks July 30, 2014 at 2:01 pm

The entire “power” thing is pure radfem bullshit. It is the same tripe as the “power” of the patriarchy that whose supposed brainwashing is the only reason that most women are heterosexual. The idea that Jimmy Saville was the UK entertainment worlds equivalent of J Edgar Hoover sitting like a spider at the centre of his web of “power”. would be funny if it wasn’t tragic.

Maybe Yewtree should order a helicopter fly-over of all hilly areas in the UK in case Jimmy had –like Thulsa Doom –a “Mountain of Power”. Who knows what horrors might have gone on there

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuggGZA-1ks

Chris July 30, 2014 at 5:51 pm: I keep seeing reference made – by all manner of fools – to ‘The Savile Years’ of the BBC.
I’m sure Bill Cotton Jr – for one – would have something to say about that. All the people who held authority over the cheap anchor that was Jimmy Savile are, conveniently dead – just as the Great British Public are all conveniently idiotic misinformed sheep.

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Jonathan Mason July 29, 2014 at 6:02 pm

@Moor

I agree with you that the BBC should never have rolled over so quickly on this, but should have calmly presented the evidence that the allegations were shaky and never bought into the “believe anything that anybody who claims to be a victim” nonsense. You have to blame George Entwistle for a lot of this as he clearly never was chief executive material and completely failed to get a handle on the whole thing. Remember that they went from bad to worse, because cancelling the Meirion Jones expose on Newsnight was entirely the right thing to do, given the dodgy nature of the allegations, failure to confirm, and the fact that the prime allegator had a criminal record for dishonesty, but going ahead with the ridiculous allegations against a peer of the realm made by a person of highly dubious character and reliability without any kind of checking process was lunacy.

Moor Larkin July 29, 2014 at 6:11 pm

So far as I can recall noticing no evidence was ever presented to disprove the McAlpine Allegations. Messham simply disappeared in a blue funk and we were told he had recanted but had he? he spent the next few weeks and months chuntering away on Twitter but no more mainstream for him. The BBC immediately announced it would be paying compo, without waiting for a writ even, and the DG resigned.

Amazing the difference in the way the BBC upper echelons reacted when a member of their classes became involved in this nasty , tawdry tale-telling. Working class Jimmy meanwhile became his Satanic Majesty II, and the British working classes have lapped it up. Self hate is sad to watch.

Ian B July 30, 2014 at 8:46 am

McAlpine was still alive, well connected and prepared to sue. Savile was dead, and the BBC was caught in a tidal wave of hysteria from the get-go. They had no idea what he had, or had not, been up to in his private life. The speed of the whole thing was absolutely remarkable, and only made sense once we knew that “Yewtree” was planned beforehand, and then launched in synchrony with the first wave of allegations. I don’t think the BBC knew what hit them.

I really am unconvinced that any more conspiratorial explanation for the BBC caving in is necessary.

Moor Larkin July 30, 2014 at 9:59 am

@IanB re: “Speed”
The BBC knew formally what was being alleged a full month before it happened.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c2hIg-XbQ7I/UZVMGbecluI/AAAAAAAACDk/FeNO3QOhU3Q/s1600/image002.jpg
Furthermore, it’s 8,000 journalists would have known for 8 months before that I have no doubt. Walls have ears.

GD July 30, 2014 at 11:55 am

I would question that “Yewtree” was planned beforehand at all…

In early October 2012 I had ongoing (as opposed to historic) information that is now acknowledged to have needed immediate monitoring. I spent the whole of a Sunday afternoon trying to get the BBC or the Met to put me through to someone, ANYONE, who was actually dealing with any aspect of the whole thing…

…nobody had a clue…so if Yewtree was planned in advance it was classified information!
.
As far as I know there is almost as much mythology about “Yewtree” as about Duncroft at this stage

Moor Larkin July 30, 2014 at 12:11 pm

@GD
“Peter Watt, NSPCC Director of Child Protection Advice & Awareness, discusses his role working alongside police on the report into allegations of sexual abuse made against Jimmy Savile: I first became involved in Operation Yewtree when ACPO and ITV contacted the NSPCC in October last year. This was in advance of the airing of the documentary “Exposure – The Other Side of Jimmy Savile”.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/is-that-tin-hat.html?q=tin+hat

If it was in advance of the airing, that means it was before October 3rd, so it seems you are right GD. It was classified..
ACPO patently must have been involved from some time earlier.

“the Met team, led by Commander Peter Spindler, made it clear from the off that they also wanted a real partnership approach to the inquiry. In addition to the Gold Command meetings with the Met, CEOP and CPS, there were regular information sharing meetings with others from the BBC, Department of Health and the National Association of People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC). As the inquiry and subsequent investigation progressed, the press teams from the Met and NSPCC also worked very closely together. This was a huge media story, but by working together we were able to keep the media on board and keep what we were saying coherent.”

GD July 30, 2014 at 7:01 pm: It was October 6 or 7 and I admit being STAGGERED by the sheer cluelessness…it was as if the BBC and the Met had been closeted away and never heard of any Saville scandal…there was an HUGE element of “fobbing off” going on too.

I honestly gave up…yet…from the press you would have assumed that all you had to do was dial 999, say “Saville” and you would be whisked off by a SWAT team. In the real world, the general concensus of response to:

“Who do I call in relation to Saville” was pretty much:

“Errrrrrrrr…”

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Geoff July 30, 2014 at 11:54 am

Moor has done exceptionally good work on Savile. But I think it might be helpful if I butt in here with a couple of observations, before this particular article gains too much traction.

A single individual can know their own mind – but can also be confused, forgetful, self-deceiving. Two people when they interact can spend a lifetime failing to grasp what the other one means (I speak as a married man). Add a few more people (a residents group, a family business) and muddle multiplies. Once the number of people reaches the size of a government department, a serious business or, Lord knows, the BBC, collective beaviour is potentially always and everywhere chaotic.

Knowing this some institutions go out of their way to organise their systems so as to try to minimise corporate grit (the armed forces, perhaps?) The BBC is not – indeed some who have read their 20thC history would say they have never been – such an organisation. I know some, not all but enough, of the people currently at the very top of the BBC to be able to say that the recent “comedy” series W1A is not comedy but documentary realism. Although individually BBC staff can be intelligent, well-meaning, professional, sometimes even energetic and diligent, collectively they are ridiculous.

The idea that the BBC has an effective corporate memory (I have seen reference here to the BBC “archives” as if these are routinely , or even at all, accessible to staff), or can even organise so much as a small drinks party without tripping over its confused reporting lines, is laughable. There are departments within the BBC which have not so much as met, never mind spoken to one another, for decades (the department which employed Savile and the department which makes Newsnight being just one relevant example). A conspiracy on any scale (not the same thing as a few people whispering, which happens everywhere in the BBC, every single day) would be impossible to pull off, if only for the renarkable lack of initiative or courage which the BBC’s instutional culture is known to breed.

Pollard is a good guide (even though, as we now know, the report pulled its punches), particularly if one understands that many of those witnesses are mediocre and all too human people, often lying to save face or more, or simply missing the point. Sad to say this specific posting by Moor paradoxically believes too much in the BBC.

Moor Larkin July 30, 2014 at 12:15 pm

@Geoff
I’m not suggesting the entire BBC was in on it. Just the folk with the levers of power in their hands. Bear in mind that the entire process was working smoothly until McAlpine. Plainly the seething Newsnight journalists had no idea what was going on; they thought they had license to unleash paedogeddon.

Geoff July 30, 2014 at 12:41 pm

Nor was I dumping merely on lumpenprole journos or entertainment producers. To spell it out:
* I know two people on the BBC Trust and so have an entirely clear view of the decision making processes of that top body under the chairmanship of Lord Patten of Barnes
* I have dealt with the majority of the last five BBC Director Generals, two of whom I have known well for more than a decade
* The current head of one of the BBC’s “secret senior inquisitor” departments worked for me for many years.
I could go on. The culture I describe goes to the very top, certainly including the bureaucratic levels you would seek to indict.
This is not a defence of the BBC – as I am sure is obvious. But your thesis does not fit with what I know.
I have probably now said too much and so will withdraw.

Moor Larkin July 30, 2014 at 12:49 pm

@Geoff
Are the victims of Blackmail indictable? Foolishly gullible to think if they pay up, everything will be okay again.
An ex-Governor was quite voluble at the time and little he said made any sense at all, and nor did it fit the facts.
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/so-many-women-so-little-time.html

Gil July 30, 2014 at 1:53 pm: “The idea that the BBC has an effective corporate memory (I have seen reference here to the BBC “archives” as if these are routinely , or even at all, accessible to staff), or can even organise so much as a small drinks party without tripping over its confused reporting lines, is laughable. ”

I probably wouldn’t have believed this until I saw evidence of it last year on another subject. Quite amazing. To cut a long story very short, they had egg on their face because they had apparently ignored a 3-year-old BBC Panorama documentary as well as articles in the Daily Mail’s Thisismoney that would have given anyone pause before seeking expertise from that particular source let alone giving them free PR with radio and TV interviews.

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Moor Larkin July 30, 2014 at 1:28 pm

One final point from me in this regard. “Blackmail” can take many forms:
“She is not defending Savile. She’s defending truth from people who seem at best confused and at worst in unbalanced pursuit of their Warholite minutes of fame. In the meantime, the mainstream media is selecting evidence to suit the story as it has already developed. With the nation in the grip of another paedophile panic, it seems journalists don’t want the truth to confuse the issue. Some are even telling Anna it would be “career suicide” for them to contradict the accepted narrative.”
http://www.thelastditch.org/2012/10/anna-raccoons-story-continues.html

Chris July 30, 2014 at 2:41 pm

A friend of mine, freelancing at the BBC, was practically spat at by some of the more easily swayed (corrupt? stupid?) BBC employees “post-Savile” for his ongoing work on a certain long-running ‘heritage’ programme. The good people at the BBC with a dedication for that side of things really do have their work cut out – but then the “current affairs” department always did look down its nose at the ‘entertainment’ side of things, so this bullshit was manna from heaven for the arseholes who dreamt it all up. I don’t recall acquiescing to having my history rewritten.
Question is: do the public pay their license fee for a biased and often far from honest “news service” or did/do they pay to be entertained?

Geoff July 30, 2014 at 4:54 pm

PS Re-reading my two posts now on an old-fashioned computer screen, sorry for all the typos (typing on a jiggling IPad), too many to correct. Blush. Also some might prefer Directors General to Director Generals.

Geoff August 7, 2014 at 6:00 pm: Today’s everyday story of senior BBC staff:-

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/07/sacked-bbbc-tech-chief-speaks-horrendous-john-linwood

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eric hardcastle August 1, 2014 at 6:31 pm

Perhaps it was the outside elements, the NSPCC, Spindler etc who are so very good at constructing a narrative that also bolsters their own position in society- that pulled the fragmented BBC, as you describe, together to form a whole.
Along with numerous bit players like Jones, Williams-Thomas who have never been impartial and of course, a media that is only to willing to promote any truth or fantasy as it sees fit.

Throw into this mix a compensation hungry culture where little has to be done to get that money except make the claim- proof not necessary- anonymity guaranteed, and we have what can only be a grand conspiracy where some parts are constructed and false, others may be genuine and many people may promote the conspiracy subconsciously because for some odd reason they are now convinced that not only was Maggie a bad ‘un, she also silently allowed a great Tory pedo ring to flourish. And private schools & even Duncroft not being ‘working class’ feed into this as ‘sweet shops’ for the depraved.

##I’ve now lost the link but a detailed account of the literally 1000s of lies was published of the blatant lies told by George Bush Jnr, Tony Blair, Rumsfield and all the main players that led to the Iraq invasion. These were blatant and easily disproved lies told on a daily basis (that US & UK security organisations scratched their heads at) and yet they got clean away with it.

tango August 1, 2014 at 4:08 am

To Moor Larkin

“Bear in mind that the entire process was working smoothly until McAlpine. ”

Which smoothly running process are you referring to here?

Are you referring to the smoothly running process that recruited and promoted a man to its top DJ job who was a noted gangster in Leeds, had no interest in or knowledge of music, a man that by his own admission hated children and that travelled the country in a camper-van while taking every opportunity that presented to commit acts of grotesque abuse against vulnerable young people?

Is that the smoothly running process you mean, or is it some other one?

I’m just curious. I seek merely information.

Can you see what it is yet, Moor? Nah, guess not.

Moor Larkin August 1, 2014 at 10:48 am: @ I seek merely information @

If information is your bag, I’m your man Honey-coloured one!! Read on: http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/teenage-kicks.html

Quote from Operation Yewtree Report: “It is also worth noting that the reported peak offending period was between 1966 and 1976, a time when police investigation of such crimes was more basic and lacked the specialist skills, knowledge and the collaborative approach of later years….”

Something just doesn’t make sense here. In 1960 or so Jimmy Savile is running a massive Disco for school-age teenagers in Manchester, incurring the rage of the local schools, and…… nothing much happens until 1966. What becomes even more puzzling is the fact that in Manchester as those times progressed, there was a huge “Law ‘n’ Order” reaction to this whole new youth culture that was springing from the streets of Manchester into the Dance Halls of Mecca… So there you have it. Jimmy Savile is running daytime disco’s aimed at young teenagers (it might be borne in mind that the school-leaving age in 1963 was 15) and a hostile police force is determined to rein in the anarchy of a Savile-dominated, burgeoning Manchester “scene”. These hostile policemen even catch a fifteen year old girl with drugs and are in ‘pursuit’ of “pimps” and “exploitative entrepreneurs”. Jimmy Savile is working for a respectable, national company run by Eric Morley, and as Dave Haslam’s books explain, Mecca even seem to have suspected that Savile was “dipping in the till”… Where were all the rumours and reports of the biggest serial sex offender in the history of the UK at a time he was at his youthful and physical peak and completely unknown to the “Establishment” and had never worked for the BBC and nobody at all had any reason to be “frightened” of him….

Too many questions? I’ll settle for one single answer that makes even a vestige of sense.”

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tango August 1, 2014 at 3:57 am

some interesting choices of expression here from Jonathan Mason, no:

“but going ahead with the ridiculous allegations against a peer of the realm made by a person of highly dubious character and reliability without any kind of checking process was lunacy.”

Jonathan Mason, do you believe that it is entirely impossible that a “peer-of-the-realm” (cough, splutter) could, at the very least, hypothetically and plausibly, be a child rapist?

(I do not refer to the dodgy money launderer & collector of peadophile “art” the late Lord McAlpine in this regard, lol. I am just asking a very general question. )

Jonathan Mason August 1, 2014 at 6:50 am

Yes, a peer of the realm could be a child rapist, but one would want some credible evidence that it was so. If a person is accused of such and then sues those whom he says have defamed him by repeating the allegation, he is taking one hell of a risk of simply bringing more convincing allegations from more credible witnesses out of the woodwork unless he really is innocent.

eric hardcastle August 1, 2014 at 6:38 pm

I think Tango is probably upset because Chris Spivey has been arrested.

Moor Larkin August 1, 2014 at 6:46 pm: This made me laugh when I innocently found it in the web-word-search
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spivey

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EyesWideShut July 30, 2014 at 12:16 pm

I sometimes wonder if and when the truth finally comes out, how it will be handled? JS is now a sort of Guinness Book of Records Biggest Paedophile of All Time, and this was accepted so thoroughly and so quickly by just about everyone that I can’t see them ever admitting they got it wrong. They would just look too foolish. No one would ever believe them again. (Not that some of us have ever believed them on any subject, but that’s another matter). It wouldn’t be the first time that a former fact just – vanished when it no longer became sustainable. No enquiry, no apology, no “lessons learned”, instead a gentleman’s agreement never to mention the bloody thing again. We’ re all familiar with McCarthyism, but it’s forgotten that the Lavender Scare ( a witch-hunt against homosexuals) went much further and deeper than the Red Scare at the time, and claimed many more victims. It’s very rarely, if ever, talked about now.

Chris July 30, 2014 at 1:27 pm: Before too long, it will lost in the mists of time – what is happening to Britain (and the USA, and most definitely Australia) is determining:
Those who went along with Jimmy being ‘a predatory paedophile’ with no evidence (in fact plenty to disprove it) now have to accept that Rolf Harris is – on no evidence. But let’s forget ageing or dead beloved celebrities – let’s look at ordinary people.
How about those that dedicated their lives to teaching? The UK courts are full of old men (and some not so old) being accused, arrested, tried and convicted of being child abusers on no evidence – are they innocent or guilty? Who knows, but with no evidence who’s to say – certainly not smarmy barristers being paid to act out a role in the courtroom, and certainly not ‘the jury’ – have no faith in the Great British Public, a nation groomed by the media and by daytime ITV sponsored by Slater & Moron.

Those who were so eager – either by ignorance, stupidity or their own blind prejudice – to condemn the dead, defenceless Sir Jimmy Savile of what are, seriously, unbelievable offences have to accept that Rolf Harris is, and are other celebrity scapegoats. They too will also have no alternative to accept, if the avaricious mob target them, that their grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers, sons, friends are too – for there but for fortune goes every teacher, scoutmaster, youthclub volunteer, nurse, doctor, surgeon etc – and neighbour. It stands to reason that this includes anyone daring to be ‘eccentric’ in the 21st Century, and anyone who – like ‘us lot’ – dare to stick our heads above the parapet and point out this monstrous social engineering.

I declared where I stood on this nonsense 22 long months back (which really does, in many ways, feel like a lifetime ago) – people may well be stupid and ignorant now, but the weren’t so last century.
http://retardedkingdom.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/viva-hate.html

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eric hardcastle August 1, 2014 at 6:45 pm: I have worked around the media for too long to not know this : there is a reason Private Eye (that lately has itself adopted Daily Mail elements) has a column called Glenda Slagg as Glenda reflects the British tabloid’s ability to immediately switch course in mid-stream.

The Savile fiasco will be dismantled but probably now wholly for this very reason : the unpicking of a story can be as sensational as the original story. There are so many recent examples but the Haut de la Garrenne coconut shell is as good as any seeing Savile has been weaved into that. And of course in the unpicking they can also cherry pick and re-affirm various elements. Savile will never be innocent and the great public will basically never know what is real and what is fantasy and probably care even less.

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Moor Larkin August 1, 2014 at 5:48 pm

Just by way of PS, this older Post of mine details how , prior to the McAlpine moment, the BBC seemed to be promising to become the media arm on behalf of Napac; and further details how NSPCC bludgeoned the smaller charity out of the picture, with the involvement of Lord Patten. I maybe should have referenced it in the above article.

“11 Jan 2013
The National Association for People Abused in Childhood said that both George Entwistle, the former director-general, and Tim Davie, the acting director-general, agreed to help set up and fund the Jimmy Savile hotline. However, Peter Saunders, chief executive of the charity, claimed that Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, had intervened to block the plans. Lord Patten yesterday denied that he had “dismissed” the idea, but admitted that the BBC had decided “not to proceed” with the helpline. Mr Saunders described the decision as “very sad”. He said: “I had some very interesting and constructive talks with George Entwistle who wanted to support Napac. “George left and his successor wanted to carry on with that work by putting in place a national survivor helpline.”
http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/pulling-tugging-forelocks-optional.html

eric hardcastle August 1, 2014 at 6:48 pm

Peter Saunders has given more conflicting interviews about his history than even MWT. Just Google him.

Moor Larkin August 1, 2014 at 6:54 pm: http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-insistence-of-memory.html
” Peter Saunders himself clearly exhibits every trait of recovered and false memory, with his morphing accounts of his lifelong problems between 1997 and 2013 escalating from one abuser to teachers and priests being involved over the succeeding decade. “

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eric hardcastle August 1, 2014 at 8:54 pm

As for the BBC : I received this response after I made a complaint:

” Thank you for contacting BBC News Website.
We understand you feel the news regarding The Commission of Investigation which has been set-up after the remains of almost 800 children were found in Tuam, County Galway, earlier this year is a ‘fabrication’.
It’s not clear from your complaint why you believe this hasn’t happened and who you feel no one has made this claim. The article made clear why the Commission was set-up. It’s also worth noting back in June 2014 “The Irish justice minister has ordered a police report on all the information it has on the deaths of almost 800 children at a mother and baby home.”

The fabrications just keep coming : I clearly complained that this part of their story was untrue : ” the remains of almost 800 children were found in Tuam, County Galway, earlier this year.” That is false. They wrongly claimed that I said there was no “Commission of Investigation “. That is a lie.
Bizarre but now it becomes a “fact” : that the remains of 800 children were found. Sheer utter lunacy !

eric hardcastle August 1, 2014 at 8:55 pm

The link : (someone tell me..am I going mad?)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28338852

Alexander Baron August 25, 2014 at 11:22 am

I’ve been looking for a copy of that fake Duncroft letter but can’t find it anywhere. Has this been released?

Anna Raccoon August 25, 2014 at 12:27 pm: Ian Gallagher at the Mail on Sunday has the copy…..

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