Jimmy Savile’s unmasking gives pause for thought

What has tumbled out in the aftershock of Jimmy Savile’s unmasking as a serial abuser has given pause for thought on many fronts, writes Michael Clifford.

TO lose one MC to arrest for sexual assault was misfortunate, to lose two must have been careless. So it was for Kevin Horkin, the new mayor of the Lancashire town of Clitheroe last month. Originally, Horkin had asked his friend, the actor William Roache to say a few words at his mayoral inauguration. Then Roache, who has played Ken Barlow in Coronation Street for more than 40 years, was arrested on suspicion of raping a woman in 1967.

Into the breach stepped Nigel Evans, high-flying politician, deputy speaker of the House of Commons. Then Davis was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and rape. Another one bites the dust, and the new mayor must have wondered whether mayoralties always got off to such inauspicious starts.