Read Online In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile by Dan Davies - Free Book Online Page B

never in a position to raise their heads above the parapet. But they were being driven to distraction by what was being said about Savile, not least by the BBC, which made a huge song and dance about his funeral … People wanted to talk, they were willing to say, not on the record most of them, but they wanted it out there and they were willing to share what had happened to them on the basis of confidentiality.’
    Evidence began to point firmly to a police investigation intoJimmy Savile taking place not long before his death. Livingston heard various accounts of a letter from Surrey Police suggesting that no charges were pressed due to his age. Keri had made no mention of this in her online memoir, and professed no knowledge of the police looking into Savile, and therefore it represented an intriguing new strand to the story. Meirion Jones felt that Mark Williams-Thomas, as a former Surrey Police officer, might be able to help them get to the truth of what the police’s involvement had been, and emailed him stating that he was ‘very keen’ for him to be involved in the story as a consultant and expert. 3
    MacKean and Livingston were in constant touch via telephone and email, exchanging information, impressions and questions for each other. Of the sixty women they contacted, ten had come back with useful information, of whom five claimed to have been sexually abused by Jimmy Savile during their time at Duncroft. One also reported that her sister had been abused during a visit to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
    A pattern started to emerge, and with it MacKean’s doubts quickly evaporated. ‘There were certain things that made me believe they’re telling the truth,’ she says. ‘It was the fact there was a lot of commonality in the stories they told but their stories weren’t identical … Some of them said immediately, “It didn’t happen to me but we knew it happened to other girls. We basically knew that when Savile came some of them would cluster round him because they knew they would get things from him.”’ MacKean says girls such as these knew there might be a price for any transaction with their celebrity visitor, and some were willing to pay it.
    ‘Their accounts collectively seemed to tell me a lot about the institution they were in,’ she continues. ‘And explain a lot about why Savile targeted them, how he insinuated his way in and how, even by the standards of the time, he had what was most unusual access. Meirion, who was a bystander at the time, thought it was odd; his parents thought it was odd; but his aunt was bamboozled and charmed. That’s how he managed it.’
    Some of the women were terrified about being exposed. As was the case with many who had been at Duncroft, the lack of trust in authority figures represented a serious issue for the
Newsnight
investigators. ‘I had to persuade them that I wouldn’t reveal their names or give away any identifying features,’ explains MacKean.
    ‘Their stories fitted the trend. We were able to build up a pattern of Savile’s offending behaviour,’ she says. ‘At one end, the most extreme end, it was lifts in his car and blowjobs. And at the other end was this constant sticking his tongue down [their] throats, shoving his hands up skirts, pushing people up against the wall and groping them. He was very open and did it in front of the other girls. None of the abuse that was described to us fell outside those goalposts, if you like.
    ‘I believed it and I believed them,’ she continues. ‘I respected and understood their reasons for not wanting to be seen on camera, not wanting their names out there, but also their willingness and their desire that their quotes would be used to help.’
    Three of the women Liz MacKean, Meirion Jones and Hannah Livingston spoke to talked about abuse taking place on BBC premises. They described the opportunity to get out of Duncroft and be a part of one of his TV programmes as Savile’s ‘ultimate calling