BBC bosses deny hearing Savile ‘rumours’
Both former director general Mark Thompson, and director of news Helen Boaden, told an internal BBC inquiry they had never heard any “rumours” about the DJ and presenter.
The details were included in thousands of pages of evidence gathered during an inquiry by former Sky executive Nick Pollard
The BBC has redacted over 90 pages of evidence from the Pollard report in which staff — including Mr Paxman — are highly critical of senior executives.
It was set up last year to investigate if management failings were behind the decision by Newsnight to drop its Savile investigation in Dec 2011, weeks before a Christmas tribute aired.
The revelations about Savile — later broadcast by ITV — sparked a major criminal investigation and focused attention on what police described as decades of predatory sexual crimes committed by the star.
Mr Paxman said that the BBC’s handling of the decision to drop its investigation was “almost as contemptible” as its behaviour during the years the DJ was one of its biggest names.
He said: “It was, I would say common gossip, that Jimmy Savile liked, you know, young — it was always assumed to be girls. I had no evidence. But it was common gossip, I think.”
Mr Thompson said he had never worked with Savile. “I had never heard any rumours at all, if you like of a dark side of any kind, sexual or otherwise about Jimmy Savile,” he said.
Ms Boaden said she “had never heard any dark rumours” about Savile but did meet him at a lunch for veteran DJs. “He came to the lunch, he kissed my hand at the beginning, he kissed my hand at the end, he said not a word to me between those events”.
Mr Paxman told the inquiry “the important question” was how Savile had been allowed to rise to prominence. “What was the BBC doing promoting this absurd figure, this absurd and malign figure? And I think that has to do with the fact of the BBC having been aloof from popular culture for so long,” he said.
Mr Thompson said he had been approached about the Newsnight investigation by BBC journalist Caroline Hawley at a Christmas party in 2011. “I remember seeing Caroline at the party because I had seen her in Tripoli, in Libya some period shortly before.
“But the phrase that stuck in my mind is, ‘You must be worried about the Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile’,” he said. The “casual remark” had not worried him because “at this point the name Jimmy Savile doesn’t ring alarm bells”.
The emails released show at one stage, a date — Dec 7 2011 — had been pencilled in for the screening of the Newsnight investigation, until editor Peter Rippon decided the report needed to focus on whether the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had dropped an inquiry into Savile’s activities.
Journalist Meirion Jones, who initially proposed the probe, flagged the idea just hours after the DJ’s death in an email headed “Jimmy Savile — paedophile”.
He wrote: “Some of the girls are now prepared to talk about this which might make a core to a film about what Jimmy Savile really got up to — and of course he’s dead so he can’t sue.”
He later warned the broadcast should go ahead because otherwise the BBC would be accused of a “cover-up”.
On the proposed day of transmission, Mr Rippon was still unsatisfied with progress on the report saying he was unsure it “will ever be strong enough for us even to run it”.
By Dec 9, the decision was taken to drop the story when the CPS said its inquiry had been curtailed due to a lack of evidence.
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