She corroborated and added to the general picture. [We now had] these other vital quotes and testimonies from other victims and witnesses, and when you put it all together with the footage of
Clunk Click
and the fact we did get confirmation of a police investigation, we had a really cracking story.’
What’s more, the team had also received an account that related to abuse at Stoke Mandeville, the hospital Jimmy Savile had worked at as a volunteer before leading the fund-raising drive to rebuild the National Spinal Injuries Centre, which opened in 1983.
‘We’d heard a rumour about Broadmoor [another hospital Savile was closely associated with] but we hadn’t gone anywhere with it,’ says MacKean. ‘And we knew, because of the photograph in the
Sun
[in 2008], that he was at Haut de la Garenne [the Jersey children’s home at the centre of an abuse scandal]. So we were thinking, “Hang on, if we know this now about Duncroft … we are building up a picture and there could be a lot more [victims] out there”.’ Meirion Jones predicted that there might be as many as one hundred. It was an estimate that turned out to be conservative in the extreme.
*
On 27 November, less than three weeks after Jimmy Savile’s funeral had taken place amid rapturous national coverage, Meirion Jones began drafting a preliminary script that would be read as the ‘cue’ for the report. This is what he wrote:
‘When Jimmy Savile died in October, Prince Charles led the tributes to a national treasure. But there was a darker side to the star of
Jim’ll Fix It
.
Newsnight
has learnt that he was investigated by police for sexual assaults on minors but the Crown Prosecution Service decided in 2009? [the question mark is included because they werestill waiting for confirmation from the police and the CPS] that he was too old and infirm to face trial. Now some of the girls who say they were assaulted by him in the 1970s when they were 13, 14 and 15 have talked to
Newsnight
. They say Savile was an evil man who should rot in hell and that his charity work gave him cover to get young girls. They even claim some of his abuse took place after BBC recordings and involved other celebrity paedophiles who appeared on Savile’s shows such as Gary Glitter. Liz MacKean investigates …’ 8
MacKean was also working on a first draft of the script proper, and parallel discussions were taking place about what Mark Williams-Thomas could add as an expert in child sex abuse cases. A copy of the first draft was sent to Peter Rippon, Liz Gibbons, who was responsible for booking editing suites at the BBC, and Roger Law, a BBC lawyer. On the same day, the Impact Team began gathering information in order to prepare versions of the story that could be rolled out across the BBC network. ‘It is safe to assume there will be a huge amount of interest in the story, I would expect all domestic outlets to want versions,’ said a member of the team in an email to Rippon. 9
Liz Gibbons’s reluctance to have anything to do with the story was again underlined when she emailed Rippon to confirm that he would be the executive producer on the report. 10
At lunchtime on 29 November, Rippon emailed Stephen Mitchell, who was in Belfast, with a positive-sounding update on the state of the
Newsnight
report on Jimmy Savile. Seven victims of sexual assault from Duncroft Approved School had been spoken to, Surrey Police had carried out an extensive investigation, which was recent even though the offences took place in the 1970s, and the women were credible. He added that Sky were also chasing the story so it would be prudent not to ‘sit on it’. 11 It is a telling detail, given that Sky’s interest made it more likely that the story would come out one way or the other.
Mitchell replied 18 minutes later, enquiring as to whether the headmistress of the school had been spoken to, and whether the girls had approached any of the staff. Rippon answered the questionsand sent
Clunk Click
and the fact we did get confirmation of a police investigation, we had a really cracking story.’
What’s more, the team had also received an account that related to abuse at Stoke Mandeville, the hospital Jimmy Savile had worked at as a volunteer before leading the fund-raising drive to rebuild the National Spinal Injuries Centre, which opened in 1983.
‘We’d heard a rumour about Broadmoor [another hospital Savile was closely associated with] but we hadn’t gone anywhere with it,’ says MacKean. ‘And we knew, because of the photograph in the
Sun
[in 2008], that he was at Haut de la Garenne [the Jersey children’s home at the centre of an abuse scandal]. So we were thinking, “Hang on, if we know this now about Duncroft … we are building up a picture and there could be a lot more [victims] out there”.’ Meirion Jones predicted that there might be as many as one hundred. It was an estimate that turned out to be conservative in the extreme.
*
On 27 November, less than three weeks after Jimmy Savile’s funeral had taken place amid rapturous national coverage, Meirion Jones began drafting a preliminary script that would be read as the ‘cue’ for the report. This is what he wrote:
‘When Jimmy Savile died in October, Prince Charles led the tributes to a national treasure. But there was a darker side to the star of
Jim’ll Fix It
.
Newsnight
has learnt that he was investigated by police for sexual assaults on minors but the Crown Prosecution Service decided in 2009? [the question mark is included because they werestill waiting for confirmation from the police and the CPS] that he was too old and infirm to face trial. Now some of the girls who say they were assaulted by him in the 1970s when they were 13, 14 and 15 have talked to
Newsnight
. They say Savile was an evil man who should rot in hell and that his charity work gave him cover to get young girls. They even claim some of his abuse took place after BBC recordings and involved other celebrity paedophiles who appeared on Savile’s shows such as Gary Glitter. Liz MacKean investigates …’ 8
MacKean was also working on a first draft of the script proper, and parallel discussions were taking place about what Mark Williams-Thomas could add as an expert in child sex abuse cases. A copy of the first draft was sent to Peter Rippon, Liz Gibbons, who was responsible for booking editing suites at the BBC, and Roger Law, a BBC lawyer. On the same day, the Impact Team began gathering information in order to prepare versions of the story that could be rolled out across the BBC network. ‘It is safe to assume there will be a huge amount of interest in the story, I would expect all domestic outlets to want versions,’ said a member of the team in an email to Rippon. 9
Liz Gibbons’s reluctance to have anything to do with the story was again underlined when she emailed Rippon to confirm that he would be the executive producer on the report. 10
At lunchtime on 29 November, Rippon emailed Stephen Mitchell, who was in Belfast, with a positive-sounding update on the state of the
Newsnight
report on Jimmy Savile. Seven victims of sexual assault from Duncroft Approved School had been spoken to, Surrey Police had carried out an extensive investigation, which was recent even though the offences took place in the 1970s, and the women were credible. He added that Sky were also chasing the story so it would be prudent not to ‘sit on it’. 11 It is a telling detail, given that Sky’s interest made it more likely that the story would come out one way or the other.
Mitchell replied 18 minutes later, enquiring as to whether the headmistress of the school had been spoken to, and whether the girls had approached any of the staff. Rippon answered the questionsand sent
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