BBC & Savile

[princerupe74]

Why does it matter so much that Newsnight's Savile investigation was dropped? The guy was dead by then, so it's not as if more young girls were thereby endangered. Strikes me as a typical media witch hunt - with the BBC Director General the target on this occasion - which won't end until the head rolls....

[dotty.]

paul gambacini is being very open now, another one who said nowt

[MASS1961]

There seems to be a lot of them, all saying he would have denied it if they said anything and that would be the end of it. We'll see how this evolves after this programme.

[Maydup]

It just goes to show how difficult people found it to be the first to accuse him. What if no-one believed them? Even the BBC thought twice about it.

[Duncer]

Dead or not, his victims, and that's exactly what they were, are still, suffering. They need closure.

[Duncer]

Fuerthermore, can't we learn from this and try to prevent future reoccurences?

[Duncer]

................and I can spell reoccurences!

[HowardKennitby]

^

yes you can. Unfortunately that is not a word.

[Duncer]

Please allow me to beg to differ. If you accept that things can re-occur then there are reoccurences.

[elliemay1]

it's spelt reoccurrence and it is a word.

[starone]

Just looked it up in my dictionary and it is definitely a word duncer and howard.

[MASS1961]

Reoccurrence
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reoccurrence

Recurrence
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/recurrence

seems that both are ok

[ELVIS68]

With all these accusations coming out now and stories about cover ups within the BBC, surely someone somewhere must have reported this to the police?

Or was that swept under the carpet too?

[potty64]

I thought the subject was about sexual assaults on vunerable girls not a dispute on a non existent spelling mistake seems SO trivial! Keep to the debate.

[MASS1961]

I think he was almost treated as an untouchable, a saint, larger than life.

I heard, allegedly, he had said, "if you report me just think how much this will cost your organisation(s)"

[dotty.]

now they are talking about cub scouts he also assaulted.

[boxtops]

He was seen as a person who did so much good for institutions, he denied rigorously when challenged - people just didn't whistleblow, the youngsters say they were terrified of what had happened. It matters because so much happened on BBC premises, and the BBC turned a blind eye. The DG's only been in post a few weeks, most of this didn't happen on his watch.

[Duncer]

Back to my original point - he can rot and die but his victims need closure.

[MASS1961]

I agree Box but I rather think his head may roll, even if he is a scapegoat, others may breathe a huge sigh of relief!

[jno]

boxy, it's not at all clear the the BBC turned a blind eye, at least not yet it isn't. People said they'd heard rumours but nobody had any facts to hand. None of the victims seems to have reported it at the time.

It's hard to say what anyone might have done about it. Journalists who'd heard rumours could have tried to investigate them (and that's not just the BBC, of course, it's all of Fleet St, which may be why they're trying so hard to point the finger at the Beeb) but anyone who asked got nowhere at all.

The fact that some of it happened on BBC property doesn't prove any sort of BBC complicity. You'd have to show someone somewhere actually knew what was going on. So far nobody's shown anything of the sort. Just ugly rumours.

[boxtops]

hmm, jno - the evidence is building. Awful.