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The Aftermath

Crime Files

The Aftermath

'It was good while it was lasted.'

Savile’s headstone

In November 2012, and after just 54 days in the job, the BBC lost its Director General, George Entwistle because of another failed Newsnight investigation and because of the continuing fallout from the Savile scandal.The BBC spent over £5m on three inquiries to work out what had gone so wrong for so long. The Pollard Review looked into the ‘seriously flawed’ reasons for the dropping of the Newsnight investigation into Savile.It concluded of BBC management that leadership was ‘in short supply.’

'I think it’s helped alert the British public to the scale of child abuse not just involving celebrities but involving other corrupters, destroyers of young lives. I think that it probably means that the prosecuting authorities and the police now take complaints or evidence of abuse far more seriously.' Paul Connew, Former Editor, ‘Sunday Mirror’

In 2014, after the NHS report into how Savile used his celebrity status to ‘exploit and abuse’ people within the health system, the then Health Secretary apologised to victims saying Savile’s actions;

'...will shake our country to the core.'

By that point, there were over 500 reports of Savile abuse.The report that covered 28 hospitals including Leeds General Infirmary and Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, finally started to account for the scale of Savile’s actions. It found nine victims had told members of staff. It could not categorically confirm or deny allegations of necrophilia but the Doctor that led the inquiry said controls on access to the mortuary was ‘lax’The report released that June revealed that Savile had made jewellery out of glass eyes taken from dead bodies in a hospital mortuary.

‘Now Then, Now Then’

Savile catchphrase

The elaborate headstone that marked Savile’s final resting place in the North Yorkshire cemetery where he was buried was torn down. Most sources believe that he was indeed modern Britain’s most prolific paedophile. He now lies in an unmarked grave.