BBC editor ‘played down’ Savile probe

Leaked emails suggest that Newsnight editor Peter Rippon played down the importance of an investigation into Jimmy Savile’s alleged child abuse, saying the victims were “teenagers, not too young” and the abuse was not the “worst kind of sexual offences”.

A Newsnight reporter who wrote the email said that her editor tried to “kill” the Jimmy Savile story by making “impossible editorial demands” and saying the women who spoke out about the TV star were not too young at the time of the incidents.

Channel 4 News said it had seen an email sent last December by Newsnight reporter Liz MacKean in which she discusses Newsnight editor Peter Rippon’s response to her investigation into Savile.