Savile Pursuit Turns Desperate

[Update at end of post]

The cheaper end of the Fourth Estate has made such capital from the revelations about Jimmy Savile’s activities that they are now loath to let go. But there is less and less new material as time goes on, and potential victims wisely go to the Police, rather than trust the hacks who have covered themselves in less than glory by sitting on their hands until the broadcasters began to investigate.

So it is left to the likes of Richard Littlejohn to try and obtain some more mileage from existing material, and this he does by writing another of his unfunny “spoofs”, imagining how the New Tricks team would tackle the case. Yes, while those targeted by Savile all those years ago go through the agony of reporting their experience, Dick is laughing at them. You couldn’t make it up.

And while we’re on the Mail’s case, there is another rather tenuous assertion from Martin Samuel (he’s a sports writer – no comment) who suggests that we should have listened to Jerry Sadowitz. But they wouldn’t let him on the TV! Well, I can’t say I’m surprised about that one Mart, given the character of his material. Samuel also concedes that Sadowitz “exists in relative obscurity”, so answers his own question.

Meanwhile, the attack has broadened from kicking the BBC – a favourite target of the right-leaning part of the media – to kicking the NHS, another of their faves. This is because Savile may have molested patients, some of them vulnerable, at Stoke Mandeville hospital and Leeds General Infirmary, as well as Broadmoor high security hospital. Once again, the Mail is in the vanguard (albeit a year late).

But, once again, if nobody made a formal complaint at the time, there will be no record for the Police to go on, which brings us to the truly bizarre suggestion from the Express that Savile’s body may be exhumed in order to obtain a DNA sample. What on earth for? Is someone suggesting a match with unwashed decades-old clothing or bedding? And there is a minor obstacle to that one.

Because of fears of grave robbing (Savile was rumoured to have been buried with some of his jewellery) the coffin was encased in concrete. That will, after a year in the ground, be set very solid indeed. Small wonder the story was credited only to “Daily Express Reporter”. And then there is the Murdoch Sun, which to no surprise at all is also hot on the case of the hated BBC.

They have a witness, who worked behind the cameras on Savile’s shows, and in the retelling has become a “top director”. He, just as the Sun would have wished, says everyone at the BBC knew. But, as I keep saying, if nothing was recorded at the time, they’ll be going nowhere (this is reminiscent of all those “other papers did it” on phone hacking – no evidence and mere hearsay means no progress).

Expect more desperation, and kicking of both BBC and NHS, in the coming days.

[UPDATE 13 October 1735 hours: to top all the clueless Beeb-bashing from the Mail, the odious Quentin Letts (let's not) has today asserted that the left wing has gone quiet, because the BBC is left wing (well, it's to the left of the routinely dishonest Letts, but then so are most folk). Yes, the left are held to be in trouble, which means Letts has to slip in a blatant porkie at the outset, asserting the Mil the Younger has also gone quiet - except of course he has spoken about the Savile business at least twice.

And Letts manages to miss the close relationship between Jimmy Savile and Margaret Thatcher when the latter was Prime Minister. Savile was a welcome guest at Chequers while she was in charge, and of course it was on her watch that he got his knighthood. Never mind, though, Letts can smear presenter Samira Ahmed by association because she is a visiting Professor at Kingston Uni, and because Brian Cathcart of Hacked Off is Professor of Journalism, the two just have to be connected.

Thus the usual lame hackery, with Letts failing to address the obvious point: the Mail, the UK's best resourced paper, did nothing, and it was left to the broadcasters to investigate. Still, a hatchet job to order for the Vagina Monologue and another pay cheque eh, Quent? As if you give a fig about anything else - like facts]