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

absolutely clear cut,’ he says of his reaction to what she had written. ‘I recognised everything she was saying about Duncroft, whereas most journalists would have probably seen it as a fantasy world with all these celebs and these girls being locked up in this stately home and being on drugs the whole time. Going out to Television Centre or Shepherds Bush Empire? Yeah, I knew they did that. Most of that world knew. And as soon as I saw “JS”, it was obvious who that was.’
    Jones was working on a film with Mark Williams-Thomas, a former Surrey Police officer who specialised in major crime and child abuse. They were collaborating on an investigation into how paedophiles can be tracked down. While carrying out research together at Interpol in Lyon, Jones had ‘a long chat’ with Williams-Thomas about Jimmy Savile, his own memories of Duncroft and what Keri had written about hers. He thought Williams-Thomas might have heard about the Savile investigation, given his Surrey connections. Williams-Thomas, who left Surrey Police in 2000, had not.
    Williams-Thomas was immediately interested, recalls Jones, ‘but the libel situation was such there was no chance [of doing anything while Savile was alive]’. In any case, Jones, who also discussed Savile with his
Newsnight
colleague Liz MacKean, was fully committed to other investigations.
    *
    When news broke of Jimmy Savile’s death on 29 October 2011, Meirion Jones knew it was time to make his move. On the morning of Monday, 31 October, he spoke to his boss at
Newsnight
, the programme’s editor Peter Rippon. He also fired off an email to Tom Giles, the editor at
Panorama
, writing: ‘This may not be up
Panorama
’s street but when I was little my aunt ran a bizarre approved school in a stately home and we would go and visit and Jimmy Saville [sic] would turn up and charitably take the 14-year-old girls on unescorted outings to TVC [BBC Television Centre] and the like and then molest them with his friends. Some of the girls are now prepared to talk about this … and of course he’s dead so he can’t sue.’ 10
    It was not the first time at the BBC in which aspersions had been cast on the previously good name of Sir Jimmy Savile OBE. In May 2010, it was brought to the attention of senior executives at the corporation that Savile was gravely ill. Nick Vaughan-Barratt, a senior executive, emailed George Entwistle, then the BBC Controller of Knowledge Commissioning, to inform him that the BBC had no obituary prepared. At the end of the email, Vaughan-Barratt added, ‘I am not sure we would want one … I have apersonal interest here: my first job in TV was on a JS show – I know him well and saw the complex and sometimes conflicting nature of the man at first hand.’ He concluded by adding, ‘I’d feel v queasy about an obit. I saw the real truth!!!’ 11
    On 1 November 2011, a day after the announcement of Jimmy Savile’s death, Vaughan-Barratt, by then the BBC’s head of Events, sent another email. This one was addressed to Jan Younghusband, Commissioning Editor for BBC Music and Events, and contained the reasons why no obituary had been prepared in advance. ‘We decided the dark side to Jim (I worked with him for 10 years) would make it impossible to make an honest film that could be shown close to death.’ 12 Younghusband followed up by sending an email of her own to Entwistle, agreeing ‘something celebrating a particular part of [Savile’s] TV career is probably better than the [life] story as there are aspects of this which are hard to tell’. 13
    When later questioned about what he meant by ‘the dark side’, Vaughan-Barratt explained that he had worked with Savile on regional BBC programmes in Leeds in the 1970s, and heard rumours ‘about him abusing his position at Stoke Mandeville … there were accusations that he was having sexual relations with patients.’ 14 He stated, however, that he never heard anything about ‘illegal activity …