Savile’s victims ‘ignored or laughed at by authorities’

Victims of Jimmy Savile, the former BBC TV presenter who after his death was unmasked as one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders, said they were ignored or laughed at when they tried to report that he had abused them, a report said.

Last year, police said Savile, one of the country’s best-known celebrities in the 1970s and 1980s, had sexually abused hundreds of victims, mainly youngsters, at hospitals and at BBC premises over six decades until his death aged 84 in 2011.

A report by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, found many of those Savile had targeted said authorities had dismissed their claims at the time of the abuse while others stayed silent as they feared they would not be believed.