How Jimmy Savile Survived the Tabloids for Thirty Years

Last year saw many dark days indeed down in the UKs gutter. Levesonspolitical fog had descended over investigative journalism. And, like the London smog used to, it seemed to be set to stick. And yet two months after the balding bespectacled lord of the rings for journalists to jump through had fiddled so discordantly with the furtiveness of investigative journalism I saw the Tabloid Terror back there shifting listlessly under a murky street lamp outside the last pub in the ghost town that was once Fleet Street. Amazingly he wasnt even tending a bloody nose. The Pack was gathering again and thoughts were once more fixed on what The Pack does best shining a light in the beds of the lords of the unzipped flies and the ladies who do lunchboxes. The politicians and the business gods. In fact, anyone who wants to sweep scandal under the carpet in the hallowed halls of infamy and celebrity. And none of them realised that it was the spectre of a cigar-smoking dark knight of the realm which was pulling the Tabloid Terror up by his belt and braces. His catch-phrase from the BBCs Jimll Fix It was echoing around the UK again: Now then, now then, now then Yes, it was that old pervert, Sir Jimmy Savile, who had really fixed it for the tabloids to survive the scrutiny of the very ones its slathering pack were put on this earth to hunt. Now then, now then, now then Yes! It was the clarion cry of Savile, that friend to royalty, politicians, NHS bosses and charity chiefs, the pied-piper of pops shame, that despicable child molesting purveyor of mediocrity on the airwaves. And for 40 years his star shone so bright that the bosses at the BBC had to avert their sanitary eyes.

Called Off the Story

Way back in 1989, I was commissioned by The Sun Britains toughest newspaper to expose Savile. The background was simple enough, a tip-off that the DJ was renting a council flat in a Manchester back-street tower block well, we all knew that Jim could fix things but how did a multi-millionaire who swanned around in a Rolls Royce Corniche manage to fix himself up with a bit of tacky social housing on a litter-strewn council estate? Savile, of course, was well-known on the rainy citys night club scene and had homes dotted across town. His his council tenancy just didnt add up. Then I started picking up tangible rumours of young girls traipsing through sodden nights to his door. It was yet more confirmation of everything journalists across the UK were hearing about him. Out of the blue, my story was quashed. The diminutive Ken Tucker, Northern news editor at The Sun, offered no explanation and I was dispatched to track down a well-known comedian rumoured to be having an affair with a barmaid while his wife lay dying of cancer. That story disappeared off the radar, too, as did the revelation that the 30-stone Liberal MP Cyril Smith was a dab-hand at spanking young boys. A decade later, though, Savile, who raised 40 million for charity, was secretly banned from taking any part in the BBCs flagship charity fund-raiser Children in Need by its chairman Sir Roger Jones. But nobody told the rest of the world.

Enter Lord Leveson

Even last year Saviles antics were known about, but the BBC covertly decided that its own Newsnight investigation into him would devastate its Christmas schedule. It included a fun eulogy to Jimmy. It finally became public in an ITV Exposure documentary on October 3, 2012. Now Scotland Yard is following literally hundreds of lines of inquiry, hundreds of potential victims have come forward. And yes its us, the good old tabloids, the red-top press, still running with the story despite facing being officially gagged by the very people its our job to investigate. Those very people didnt exactly put the top dog on getting its teeth into the tabloids though. No, the British government allowed Lord Leveson, a 62-year-old bespectacled lawyer whose greatest claim to fame was his failed prosecution of an elderly British comedy for tax evasion in 1989, to trample across the Fourth Estate. Leveson scratched at and whimpered over the practices and ethics of the press. The News International phone hacking debacle had quite rightly scandalised society. Society loved Savile. Look what it did for him: it gave him an OBE in 1971, a knighthood in 1988, a Papal knighthood in 1990, the keys to Broadmoor high security hospital, a flat at Stoke Mandeville hospital, a job as an auxiliary at Leeds hospital, the chieftainship of the famous Scottish Lochaber Games and the friendship of Prince Charles who had lunch at his Highlands home in Glencoe. And when he died on November 9, 2011, it was the Royal Marines who carried his coffin into Leeds Cathedral.

Swashbuckling, Warty Public Defenders

The simple question every Tabloid Terror is asking, but nobody is answering is this: why didnt all these people in authority, including the honours scrutiny committee, the Papal intelligence service, Prince Charles security chiefs and the bosses at the BBC ask now then, now then, now then - is this man really a child molester? And that, very simply, is why the Tabloid Terror - with its 30 million UK readers a day - is back and mutating, ready to be the swashbuckling warty and immoral defender of the public and its right to speak out and fight back. Long let the world see red (tops) when those who claim to serve - but really rule from behind a veil of secrets and lies - accidentally step into the arena of the daily news schedules.