:00:29. > :00:35.Welcome to Dateline London at. The worst crisis for the BBC in 50
:00:35. > :00:40.years, six dandled over a presenter who died last year. A ceasefire in
:00:41. > :00:44.Syria and the last lap of the US election - can knit Romney When?
:00:44. > :00:50.Un-guests are Jake Addison, a Abdel Bari Atwan from Al Quds al Arabi,
:00:50. > :00:53.Thomas Kielinger from Die Welt and Dame Ann Leslie from the Daily Mail.
:00:53. > :00:57.In the 1970s and 1980s, Jimmy Savile was one of the most famous
:00:57. > :01:02.people in Britain. Some of his programmes attracted 20 million
:01:02. > :01:09.viewers. He died last year, but now his exposure as a serial paedophile
:01:09. > :01:12.with an estimated 300 victims so far has shocked Britain. There are
:01:12. > :01:16.questions for the BBC and for the police, who investigated but failed
:01:16. > :01:21.to prosecute. How significant is this scandal for the way sex crimes
:01:21. > :01:26.are now regarded for the BBC and other institutions? Dame Ann Leslie,
:01:26. > :01:30.no one comes out of this with much credit, did they? No, in a way it
:01:30. > :01:37.is a generational thing. I am old enough to have remembered the 1950s
:01:37. > :01:42.very well. There is a wonderful two lines at the beginning of L P
:01:42. > :01:48.Hartley's novel, the go-between. He said that the past is a foreign
:01:48. > :01:54.country, they do things differently there. That sort of thing was going
:01:54. > :02:00.on a great deal in the 1970s and 1980s, and I blame the 1960s, which
:02:00. > :02:10.I enjoyed greatly. Because I was young and gorgeous, so that was
:02:10. > :02:13.
:02:13. > :02:18.easy to enjoy. Everyone says you are still. I hope so. That was when
:02:18. > :02:22.the whole sort of Swinging 60s, which at were only really happened
:02:22. > :02:30.in the early 1970s, said sexual repression is almost the worst
:02:30. > :02:35.crime. Do what makes you feel good. It is interesting that the National
:02:35. > :02:40.Council for Civil Liberty, which is a human rights organisation,
:02:40. > :02:50.actually endorsed paedophilia, because one of their affiliates was
:02:50. > :02:51.
:02:51. > :02:57.the paedophile Exchange Forum. They argued in 1976 for lifting the
:02:57. > :03:04.criminal status of incest. Also, if a sexual relationship between an
:03:04. > :03:09.adult was mutual, then it shouldn't be criminalised. That was how that
:03:10. > :03:13.came about. Do you think this has been something of a watershed
:03:13. > :03:17.moment? The Metropolitan Police has been very clear this week they have
:03:17. > :03:21.had so many people phoning up talking about things that were way
:03:21. > :03:25.back in the past, as well as things that are current. In other words,
:03:25. > :03:32.people who have kept quiet about things are not keeping quiet now.
:03:32. > :03:36.This is exactly what was said, the past is a different country. They
:03:36. > :03:39.have their own past now to live down, and they were not allowed in
:03:39. > :03:44.some cases to speak, because they may have lost their job or would
:03:44. > :03:51.have been accused of being prudish and what have you. So they're
:03:51. > :03:55.coming out of the woodwork. I remember the same age myself, there
:03:55. > :03:59.was a sort of trendy thing that everybody had to be with the new
:03:59. > :04:04.kind of morals, which was lax. Permissive society was the slogan
:04:04. > :04:08.book of -- slogan of the day, and you wanted to be part of that
:04:08. > :04:12.emerging culture. Lots of these young girls, I don't want to put
:04:12. > :04:16.any blame on the women now, but a great many of them threw themselves
:04:16. > :04:22.at the feet of these celebrity TV people, and felt that they were
:04:22. > :04:25.helping themselves to what was the trendy fashion. What you make of
:04:25. > :04:31.this? Fundamentally we have to understand
:04:31. > :04:39.one thing - the man was in to be defeated -- the man was a
:04:39. > :04:43.paedophile. I appreciate what you're saying, but I do not think
:04:43. > :04:48.this whole idea of, well, it was the time of those days, nobody
:04:48. > :04:54.really took those things seriously. Whether the time allowed it or not,
:04:54. > :04:58.it is wrong. The fact that one person used his position in the
:04:58. > :05:08.public eye to be abusing children, let us understand, these were
:05:08. > :05:12.children. At any time, 15, 13, 1415 year-olds, our children. As far as
:05:12. > :05:17.we know, he was in his 40s when he abused these people, or when he
:05:17. > :05:22.started abusing them. I read he even had a caravan going around the
:05:22. > :05:26.country, and we know he lived in a very eccentric way, then a Rolls
:05:26. > :05:30.Royce, so he had a very systematic organisation in place, with people
:05:30. > :05:34.supporting income as well. We know that some celebrities will be
:05:34. > :05:38.investigated, as well. Abdel Bari Atwan, the BBC has come
:05:38. > :05:42.in for criticism this week because there has been a programme that was
:05:42. > :05:46.commissioned and then abandoned, and ITV, several months later,
:05:46. > :05:50.transmitted a programme based on the same kind of basic research.
:05:50. > :05:54.But the BBC come out of this very badly, given that the BBC is
:05:54. > :06:00.supposed to be in the business of exposing people for wrong doing?
:06:00. > :06:03.Definitely, it was a huge setback for the BBC. We look at the BBC as
:06:03. > :06:08.having a special standard of professionalism. It is the deadline
:06:08. > :06:13.for many people inside this country and and side, the BBC is a big
:06:13. > :06:19.brand when it comes to objectivity, when it comes to professionalism.
:06:19. > :06:24.To suppress a film like this, a very well-known programme like
:06:24. > :06:28.Newsnight, for example, it was shocking. What amazed me, when I
:06:28. > :06:35.first came to this country in 1978, I was addicted to Jimmy Savile
:06:35. > :06:41.programmes. I thought he was the kindest person on earth.
:06:41. > :06:50.He was so creepy! I thought he was fulfilling the
:06:50. > :06:55.wishes of children. What amazed me, you know, 40 years of working in
:06:55. > :07:05.this building and nobody noticed. Nobody noticed that there is
:07:05. > :07:14.something wrong with this man, week after week. I am really shocked.
:07:14. > :07:18.What I am getting really uneasy about is the hysterical witch-hunt
:07:18. > :07:25.atmosphere on the BBC. The BBC, as we all know, being a huge and very
:07:25. > :07:30.bureaucratic organisation, has made endless mistakes in its time. But
:07:30. > :07:38.the BBC is not the main it sinner. Of course, the mean that some of
:07:38. > :07:43.his methods -- mercifully rotting in his grave. -- the main sinner is
:07:43. > :07:47.mercifully rotting. What about a St Helens and Whiston in Broadmoor
:07:47. > :07:53.hospital, but is for the criminally insane, he was seeking out
:07:53. > :07:59.vulnerable people. In stock mandible, you know, hospitals have
:07:59. > :08:03.a statutory duty of care. The BBC doesn't come in the sense of a star
:08:03. > :08:12.and a dressing room, you do not have a statutory... That does not
:08:12. > :08:19.let them off the hook. What is more serious, I think, is
:08:19. > :08:28.the NHS alone in this man, simply because they could see money coming
:08:28. > :08:33.from him, and they did not notice... But it wasn't just... Abdel Bari
:08:33. > :08:37.Atwan coming from Palestine suddenly saw this man on TV, but it
:08:37. > :08:41.was millions of people, the Catholic Church, he was a papal
:08:41. > :08:47.knight, and that may be removed, it was the monarchy, he was a night of
:08:47. > :08:52.the realm, it was the political classes, the BBC - everybody fell
:08:52. > :08:57.for him in one way or another. He did and the nation, it has been
:08:57. > :09:01.said, and that is absolutely the case. -- he can run to the nation.
:09:01. > :09:09.One person said, how can this man who did so much good, also do so
:09:09. > :09:16.much evil? Because of all the which he did for charity and because he
:09:16. > :09:20.was doing such popular programmes on TV, Top Of The Pops and Jim'll
:09:20. > :09:23.Fix It, because of his popularity on TV nobody could have imagined he
:09:23. > :09:28.was doing all this evil behind-the- scenes.
:09:28. > :09:33.A but it was a Jekyll-and-Hyde phenomenon with him.
:09:33. > :09:43.The idea of a paedophile is some find monster, a stranger. Most
:09:43. > :09:44.
:09:44. > :09:47.paedophiles are amongst neighbours, friends and relatives.
:09:48. > :09:52.Peter Rippon, the editor of Newsnight, said there was a
:09:52. > :09:58.division between two camps in Newsnight, one supporting screening
:09:58. > :10:01.the film about income other people said no. What amazed me is that he
:10:01. > :10:06.said the police investigated and dropped the investigation simply
:10:06. > :10:13.because he was for real and very old. -- because he was frail and
:10:13. > :10:17.old. They did not feel they had the evidence.
:10:17. > :10:23.I actually sympathise with that, because at that stage, when the
:10:23. > :10:33.police were investigating, even if they found somebody who said I was
:10:33. > :10:40.abused by him, would you give evidence in court? No, no. So, in a
:10:40. > :10:43.way, the CPS said lack of evidence, not a lack of rumours.
:10:43. > :10:48.Maybe there is another way, they could have said if we have not got
:10:48. > :10:52.enough evidence to prosecute, perhaps Social Services...
:10:52. > :10:55.But the fact that the victims happily now, it shows the shocking
:10:55. > :11:00.nature of how the theme of this person deterred everyone from
:11:01. > :11:09.coming clean and blowing the whistle on him.
:11:09. > :11:15.Somebody who was a great close friend of my family's abused me,
:11:15. > :11:21.and because my parents spent time in the sub-continent. He was a nice
:11:21. > :11:25.old gent, dirty as hell, obviously, and we'd all had to sit and listen
:11:25. > :11:30.to the Goon Show, and I always had to sit on his lap, and I knew that
:11:30. > :11:38.things were going on. But I did not report him to anyone, because apart
:11:38. > :11:44.from being a bit pair of the, -- a bit of a pervert, I did not think
:11:44. > :11:48.that was worth it, for someone that would really be an abuse thing now.
:11:48. > :11:56.I just thought he was a dirty old man. We are different.
:11:56. > :12:00.We have got to understand one thing - a lot of the time when children
:12:00. > :12:04.report family members or when a person outside the family has done
:12:04. > :12:11.something wrong to them, sexual abuse or another kind of abuse,
:12:11. > :12:15.they do not listen to them. They do not believe them. Secondly, we have
:12:15. > :12:19.been here before, remember the phone hacking scandal? The CPS said
:12:19. > :12:26.there was no evidence for them to proceed. The police said there was
:12:26. > :12:31.nothing to investigate. I've just like to say, this is very
:12:31. > :12:39.dangerous, because now the general impression is that every male adult,
:12:39. > :12:46.especially of the male adult star, is a latent paedophile. We already
:12:46. > :12:50.have things like Criminal Records Bureaus going into things like
:12:50. > :12:54.people not being able to photograph their own children's nativity play,
:12:54. > :13:01.school sports and that kind of thing, and I think we are damaging
:13:01. > :13:05.our society if we'd are like this which is of Salem staff.
:13:05. > :13:10.There was a conference in Syria this week that a ceasefire was to
:13:10. > :13:15.be arranged to celebrate Eid. It may have held in some places,
:13:15. > :13:21.but at least 150 dead, various human rights organisations are
:13:21. > :13:26.saying. The mess continues. It is a mess, and it is very sad.
:13:26. > :13:30.I was one of those who supported the ceasefire, hoping that it would
:13:30. > :13:38.save the lives of 1,000 people, but unfortunately, as you mentioned,
:13:38. > :13:42.150 people were killed. Still there are rates, in civilian areas, a car
:13:42. > :13:48.bomb exploded in Damascus, many people were killed. We thought that
:13:48. > :13:53.a ceasefire would encourage people to get together, to talk, to extend
:13:53. > :14:00.this truce for a few days more, and make people realise that for the
:14:00. > :14:04.first time they can relax about. No funerals. In Syria, every day there
:14:04. > :14:11.are 150 funerals, which is very sad. I wanted the children to enjoy
:14:11. > :14:17.themselves without any bombing during Eid, which is wholly for a
:14:17. > :14:25.billion people all over the world. -- which is sacred. It was really,
:14:25. > :14:30.really sad, and I was appalled by this. I wanted to ask you, Latheron,
:14:30. > :14:33.we have seen the murder, the assassination of -- Lebanon, we
:14:33. > :14:39.have seen the murder of the intelligence chief there, we have
:14:39. > :14:43.seen what is happening in Syria clearly affecting Lebanon. It is
:14:43. > :14:49.not only Lebanon, it is Jordan also, Turkey, Iraq, it is spreading
:14:49. > :14:59.everywhere. Now Jordan discovered two cells of Al Qaeda or coming
:14:59. > :15:01.
:15:01. > :15:07.from Syria to attack embassies and certain economic infrastructures.
:15:07. > :15:11.And Turkey, Turkey is facing a huge problem, a sectarian problem. It is
:15:11. > :15:16.a sick did -- secular country. In the back there is a huge division
:15:16. > :15:20.between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims, the border crossings are
:15:20. > :15:24.out of Government control. It is a poisoned spreading all over the
:15:24. > :15:28.territory. Today comeback to the term ceasefire.
:15:28. > :15:33.For a ceasefire you have to have a unified command on the part of the
:15:33. > :15:37.rebels that can answer to the terms enshrined in the ceasefire. The
:15:37. > :15:42.problem I see in Syria is there is no unified nature are amongst the
:15:42. > :15:49.various sections of fighters. You could almost say that among
:15:49. > :15:54.President Assad's people, as well. Exactly, it is increasingly
:15:54. > :15:57.difficult to identify anyone amongst the rebels are we really
:15:57. > :16:01.want to support. Al Qaeda are coming in and using the
:16:01. > :16:05.opportunity... Are in this programme we said there
:16:05. > :16:12.is a third party, and this third party is uncontrollable. At least
:16:12. > :16:15.the Government can control its troops. The Syrian free army, the
:16:15. > :16:22.official army, they split from the official army so they are a little
:16:22. > :16:25.bit desperate, but you have more than 7,000 of these radical Islamic
:16:25. > :16:30.organisation members, Al Qaeda included, and nobody controls them.
:16:30. > :16:34.They are completely independent. Another organisation, an offshoot
:16:34. > :16:39.of Al Qaeda, declared from the first minute that we're not going
:16:39. > :16:44.to commit ourselves to a ceasefire. Normax ceasefire with his brutal
:16:44. > :16:54.regime. That is the problem. This third party is uncontrollable.
:16:54. > :17:00.
:17:00. > :17:10.That is why we have to keep out of The Yugoslav civil war was a joke
:17:10. > :17:13.
:17:13. > :17:23.at the time. They used to use the ceasefire to have a bit of rest and
:17:23. > :17:24.
:17:24. > :17:33.recuperation. I never had any faith in it. Unfortunately, I agree with
:17:33. > :17:40.everything he says. We have been fighting each other for 15 years.
:17:40. > :17:47.don't think it will work at all. The Assad regime is determined to
:17:47. > :17:56.cause chaos in the country. Whenever it wants to beat the
:17:56. > :18:06.rebels, it well. The Guardian reported that they painted army
:18:06. > :18:14.
:18:15. > :18:24.vehicles blew to be able to pass us. In June, my fellow countrymen, Kofi
:18:25. > :18:32.
:18:32. > :18:39.Annan, said a foreign minister told him that Syria would explode. We
:18:39. > :18:45.have the Saudi Arabia, could heart and Turkey. The Alawite art in all
:18:45. > :18:55.the countries in the regions. This is a huge geopolitical and
:18:55. > :18:56.
:18:56. > :19:04.sectarian conflict. It is the attitude of the left in this
:19:04. > :19:14.country that bothers me. How many times do you see demonstrations
:19:14. > :19:14.
:19:14. > :19:20.about the Assad regime? Non. The most you ever see his those little
:19:20. > :19:29.headlines. You know, this many people slaughtered today. It is as
:19:29. > :19:35.if the left a said, it we do not do anything about it because America
:19:35. > :19:42.and Israel are not directly involved. In Arbil words, if Arabs
:19:42. > :19:50.are killing Arabs, what do you do. There is a patronising racism and
:19:50. > :19:52.that which the left is guilty of. There's just about ten days of
:19:52. > :19:55.campaigning left in the US presidential elections and the
:19:55. > :19:58.opinion polls are too close to call, although one recent national poll
:19:58. > :20:01.shows Romney ahead. So, can Mitt Romney pull off an amazing victory
:20:01. > :20:11.and consign the Obama presidency to history? And what difference would
:20:11. > :20:19.
:20:19. > :20:26.it make? Of course he can taxman -- ! Up to the voting day, all the
:20:26. > :20:36.forecasters said so, Ronald Reagan was a neck and neck with his
:20:36. > :20:39.
:20:39. > :20:44.challenger. It was until the last moment. But he won by a landslide.
:20:44. > :20:49.I am not saying that Mitt Romney has in him to win a landslide, but
:20:49. > :20:59.he has one thing going for him - a sense in America that the country
:20:59. > :21:00.
:21:00. > :21:08.is in decline. Ronald Reagan also talked about American malaise, and
:21:08. > :21:14.turned it around. Mitt Romney might just catch some swing voters, it
:21:14. > :21:19.with his confidence that something will happen. The great thing that
:21:19. > :21:29.Mitt Romney has got going their him is he is not Barack Obama. Whatever
:21:29. > :21:29.
:21:29. > :21:39.you think, there will be a lot of people who are fed up with them.
:21:39. > :21:40.
:21:40. > :21:47.But people are not listening to what he is sane. -- saying. He is
:21:47. > :21:55.targeting the top 1%. He wants to reduce taxes, but what about the
:21:55. > :22:05.middle-class? We have got to understand that America had been in
:22:05. > :22:06.
:22:06. > :22:13.a hall, and this President has brought them out of the whole.
:22:13. > :22:19.difference would a Mitt Romney presidency make? Obama came to
:22:19. > :22:29.power promising change! They all come to power promising that. There
:22:29. > :22:32.
:22:32. > :22:42.is an illusion that Obama won a landslide. He did not! He won by
:22:42. > :22:57.
:22:57. > :23:02.52.7% of the vote, and John McCain lad. -- lacked. The trouble is, if
:23:02. > :23:06.I were an American, I would probably good for Obama because
:23:06. > :23:14.Romany has constantly flip-flopped. When he was governor of
:23:14. > :23:24.Massachusetts, he signed off all sorts of liberal legislation. He
:23:24. > :23:27.
:23:27. > :23:37.now denounces Obama's liberal legislation... In occluding health
:23:37. > :23:38.
:23:38. > :23:45.care. -- including. Exactly. He went far right, to secure his base,
:23:45. > :23:50.so you would never know actually what he would do as soon ruler. We
:23:50. > :23:57.certainly sort of know what Obama would do. What would change if Mitt
:23:57. > :24:06.Romney becomes President? A huge change. Mitt Romney is calling for
:24:06. > :24:16.wars. He wants to support the Syrian rebels, for example. He will
:24:16. > :24:18.
:24:18. > :24:28.support Israeli attacks against Iran. He is the closest support her
:24:28. > :24:29.
:24:29. > :24:34.of the President of Israel. It will be another George Bush coming back.
:24:34. > :24:42.This would be a disaster, not only for the United States, and a whole
:24:42. > :24:47.world. Britain revealed in The Guardian that Obama asked to use
:24:47. > :24:55.military bases, in case they want to attack Iran. Mitt Romney will
:24:55. > :25:05.build on this. We do not know what he stands for. Absolutely not.
:25:05. > :25:08.
:25:09. > :25:15.changes. The only ideology he has is to get into power. We have no
:25:15. > :25:21.idea what you would do once he would get into power, apart from
:25:21. > :25:30.protect his own taxes. Use all that he was agreeing with Obama on
:25:30. > :25:36.almost every foreign policy position. I have Obama to blame,
:25:36. > :25:40.because going into the first debate, he was well ahead in the polls. He
:25:41. > :25:50.allowed Mitt Romney to come back into the game because he did not
:25:50. > :25:56.take it very well. He said he took a long nap, as a joke, it so Obama
:25:57. > :26:06.has himself to blame for what is happening. He should have blown it
:26:06. > :26:11.Mitt Romney out by now in the polls. America does not work like
:26:11. > :26:15.elections in the UK. The fact that the swing states will determine
:26:15. > :26:23.elections is what makes it very interesting. Mitt Romney Is
:26:23. > :26:26.bleeding in the national polls, but in the swing states... -- Mitt