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Jimmy Savile scandal: BBC will not hide behind smokescreens, vows Patten Jimmy Savile scandal: BBC won't hide truth, says Patten
(35 minutes later)
The chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, has said he is dedicated to getting to the bottom of the Jimmy Savile scandal engulfing the corporation, vowing there would be "no covering our backs". The chair of the BBC Trust has insisted the corporation's two independent inquiries into the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal will hold nothing back in establishing the truth, "however terrible".
Patten said the BBC's reputation was on the line and that it risked squandering the public's trust. Lord Patten's pledge came as the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, said the BBC needed to be far less secretive in the wake of the allegations relating to the late TV presenter.
He has promised the BBC will not hide behind smokescreens, but "must tell the truth and face up to the truth about itself, however terrible". Patten said the corporation "must tell the truth and face up to the truth about itself, however terrible", promising there will be "no covering our backs".
Speaking of Savile's apparent decades of criminality, he wrote in the Mail on Sunday: "Can it really be the case that no one knew what he was doing? Did some turn a blind eye to criminality? Did some prefer not to follow up their suspicions because of this criminal's popularity and place in the schedules? Were reports of criminality put aside or buried? Even those of us who were not there at the time are inheritors of the shame." He suggested it was unlikely that no one knew about Savile's abuse. "Can it really be the case that no one knew what he was doing? " he wrote in the Mail on Sunday.
He also apologised "unreservedly" to the abused women who spoke to the BBC's Newsnight programme but did not have their stories told. "Did some turn a blind eye to criminality? Did some prefer not to follow up their suspicions because of this criminal's popularity and place in the schedules? Were reports of criminality put aside or buried? Even those of us who were not there at the time are inheritors of the shame."
The BBC chairman said the two independent inquiries that have been set up – one into the Newsnight report, the other into the BBC's culture and practices in the years Savile worked there – must get to the truth of what happened. One inquiry set up by the corporation will look into the dropping of the Newsnight investigation into Savile while the other will examine the BBC's culture and practices during the years the former he worked there.
Patten said: "Now my immediate priority is to get to the bottom of the Savile scandal and to make any and every change necessary in the BBC to learn the lessons from our independent investigations". Pickles said that to restore its public standing, the corporation needed to be more transparent, including opening itself up to Freedom of Information requests.
Savile's closest relatives broke their silence on Saturday to say their "own despair and sadness does not compare to that felt by the victims" who were abused by the late TV presenter. "I think it's in all our interests for the BBC to be held in the highest esteem that it deserves and I think the problem at the heart of the BBC is that the organisation is too secretive," he told Sky's Dermot Murnaghan.
In a statement released by Savile's nephew, Roger Foster, the family said: "How could the person we thought we knew and loved do such a thing? "I don't think it can see itself away from the real world and I think part of the process of re-establishing the BBC in the affection of the nation, is that the BBC has to be far more open."
"Why would a man who raised so much money for charity, who gave so much of his own time and energy for others, risk it all doing indecent criminal acts? How could anyone live their life doing the 'most good and most evil' at the same time?" Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, said there needed to be an over-arching independent inquiry into the Savile case, which looked beyond the BBC's role.
Foster said the family could understand the victims' "reluctance to say anything earlier" and said the family could "appreciate the courage it has taken to speak out now". "There are big lessons to be learned here, not just for the BBC, although the epicentre of it was at the BBC, but elsewhere because when something like this comes out, there is an assumption, 'how could we have gone astray from our normal policy that protecting vulnerable children must take priority over the rights of protecting adults'?
Following speculation that other celebrities from Savile's era could be accused of sexual offences, publicist Max Clifford claimed dozens of big-name stars from the 1960s and 70s have contacted him because they are "frightened" they will become implicated in the widening child abuse scandal. "That is not actually the situation because that is always under challenge."
He said the stars were worried because at their peak they had lived a hedonistic lifestyle where young girls threw themselves at them but they "never asked for anybody's birth certificate". Harman said that often MPs were concerned with protecting the anonymity of alleged abusers against but victims needed assurance that they would be believed.
Savile, who died last year aged 84, has been described as one of the most prolific sex offenders in recent UK history. The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, accepted that "things went badly wrong and it should not happen again" but said that an inquiry of the kind proposed by Harman ran the risk of slowing down the investigation. "There is always a danger if you set up a very substantial inquiry process of that kind that it takes much longer to get to the truth.
Scotland Yard detectives are dealing with about 300 alleged victims and are following more than 400 lines of inquiry. "What should be happening right now first and foremost – and clearly is happening with the police – is we should be looking to see who is still around who was involved, and criminal proceedings should follow if people were guilty of participating in these offences alongside Jimmy Savile. That is of paramount importance."