Savile: The Power to Abuse Panorama

Ahead of two major inquiries into Jimmy Savile's abuse,

Panorama reveals the extent

of the BBC star's links to the British Establishment.

He'd swan in, a bit like a prince himself,

and do the sort of...the royal wave.

Prince to Prime Minister,

he exploited friendships in high places to give himself cover.

Thank you for everything you do for every good cause.

If he duped a whole lot of people,

OK, you can add Margaret to the list of people who got duped.

Rare footage shows Savile was even calling the shots at Broadmoor.

So, there's many people say, "How come a showbiz punter

"is doing a job like this at the world's number-one mental hospital?"

And confidential documents reveal just how he abused his power there.

That sounds like blackmail.

That sounds like blackmail to me as well.

With new allegations of abuse at Broadmoor,

how were so many clues missed at some of Britain's best-known institutions?

Even the bosses would laugh.

We all knew. We knew!

Now, fresh evidence suggests the BBC failed to act

on advice that might have stopped some of Savile's abuse.

They went there for the experience of their lives,

and they came away scarred for life.

Tonight: How Jimmy Savile had the power to abuse for so long.

Yes, indeedy! Yes, indeedy.

It's been 18 months since Jimmy Savile was first unmasked

as a predatory paedophile.

He's not what you think, you know?

And still the question remains - how was he able to use some

of Britain's biggest institutions as cover for his child abuse?

Whether they were in a children's home,

whether they were in a hospital or whether they were going to the BBC,

they all deserved protection from the organisation that they were at,

and they didn't get it.

The institution that earned Savile the trust of the nation was the BBC.

And the celebrity status nurtured there helped him open doors

and escape justice his whole life.

How important were the celebrities?

Oh, they were the bee's knees. I mean, that's why you were there,

it was... Everything was about the star of the show.

Marion Horton-Smith was a receptionist

at the BBC's Lime Grove studios in the early '70s.

They were different times,

and she says some stars behaved as they pleased.

When you're young and a bit naive

and somebody famous says something possibly near the edge...

You laughed it off, because that was...

In a way, you found it flattering, whether that's wrong or right.

One night at reception, Marion plucked up the courage

to ask Jimmy Savile for a request on his radio show.

He invited her outside to his caravan to record it.

I got up to go and he said, "Does it deserve a kiss, then?"

And I went to give him a kiss on the cheek

and suddenly I was pushed back on the bed,

and he was on top of me and from somewhere he put a light out.

He was very strong.

I mean, he pinned me down, but he was slobbering up and down my neck.

The attack was interrupted by a knock at the door.

It was another BBC employee bringing a teenage girl to see Savile.

My goodness, if we hadn't been disturbed...

I mean, there's no way if he had taken things further

I would have fought him. No way.

Marion blamed herself,

and has never talked publicly about what happened until now.

If you'd told somebody, they'd have probably just told you to just,

"Keep quiet, dear." You know, that's what happens in television.

It happened as Jimmy Savile was becoming

one of the BBC's biggest stars.

By 1975, when Jim'll Fix It starts and starts getting ratings

that, on occasions are even outstripping Coronation Street,

suddenly there's this sort of golden-goose aura

that develops around him.

We now know this was the peak of Savile's offending.

There have been dozens of reports of abuse by him on BBC premises.

This woman was 14 when she met Savile

following a BBC talent audition.

She doesn't want to be identified.

She's never spoken publicly about how he groomed her

in his Top Of The Pops dressing room.

He would speak to you and put his arm around you

and give you a cuddle, and then he would say, "Come and sit on my lap."

And you would sit on his lap and...

And he had an erection.

It was vile.

You feel disgusted with yourself.

How would he get you to keep coming back?

Every time he did a bad thing, he would do a good thing.

You know - "I promise I'm going to get you an agent,

"and they're going to get you paying gigs."

Boo! Very nervous, she is, when I go "Boo".

Around the time Savile began grooming the girl,

the BBC had to investigate allegations

of a sex scandal on its premises.

The author of an internal inquiry in 1972 raised concerns

about the supervision of young people at Television Centre.

Sir Brian Neill found that there was uncertainty

about who was ultimately responsible

for all the teenage girls coming to see Top Of The Pops.

And his recommendation was that there should be clear guidance

as to who's to be ultimately responsible

for the behaviour and control of these audiences.

But how seriously was that advice taken?

We've seen a memo written in August 1972

by the BBC's Controller of Television Administration, who said...

But for three years after that,

this woman went unchaperoned to Savile's dressing room,

where she says she was molested many times.

I don't remember there being any supervision at all.

So when you went to Jimmy Savile's dressing room,

was there another adult accompanying you?

No, only Jimmy himself.

He would always just say, "When the show's over,

"just wait over there by that door there on the set,

"and I'll come and get you."

We've been told Savile abused at least five young people

in BBC dressing rooms

after the advice to improve supervision of audiences.

Here we have youngsters who were visiting the BBC

for maybe one day, going to a recording of Top Of The Pops

or appearing on Jim'll Fix It - they were absolutely starstruck.

They wouldn't have known anyone at the BBC to report it to.

They went there for the experience of their lives

and they came away scarred for life.

The BBC says it's...

It's unable to give a commentary on 40-year-old documents,

but is fully co-operating with the ongoing inquiry into the BBC.

Does anybody fancy riding a thousand miles with me?

Savile's offending went far beyond the BBC.

New research for Panorama by children's charity the NSPCC

shows it also happened in hospitals and children's homes.

There have now been 500 reports of his abuse, across six decades.

The most common age group for victims was 13 to 15,

the youngest alleged victim was two.

There's no doubt that Savile is one of the most, if not THE most,

prolific sex offender that we at the NSPCC have ever come across.

What you have is somebody who, at his most prolific,

lost no opportunity to identify vulnerable victims and abuse them.

Jimmy Savile's fame gave him

extraordinary access to many well-known institutions.

Nowhere more surprising than here,

at Britain's top-security psychiatric hospital, Broadmoor.

This film was shot at the hospital by the BBC 25 years ago.

It's never been shown since.

To get access to film, the BBC had to negotiate with its own star,

who had, incredibly, just been given a top job

at Broadmoor by the Government.

So, there's many people say, "How come a showbiz punter

"is doing a job like this at the world's number-one mental hospital?"

And what they don't know is that I've been here 20 years already.

The footage reveals that Savile certainly considered himself

in charge at Broadmoor.

If you want to win any popularity awards,

you don't take the job as the boss here.

So, how had the BBC entertainer

become so embedded with the British Establishment

that for a few months he was entrusted

with a senior role at a high-security hospital?

The story starts in the late '60s,

when Savile was invited into Broadmoor by a hospital charity

to organise entertainment for staff and patients.

Savile got his own set of keys, and even had a house on the grounds.

In 1971, he was able to bring the girl from the BBC audition

into the hospital to sing for patients.

It's where he first molested her.

What do you think of the fact that Jimmy Savile was allowed

to bring a 14-year-old into Broadmoor?

I think really it was awful.

The authorities should have said, "No, she's only 14.

"She's too young to come in here and see this place."

It was the scariest experience, I think, of my life.

Broadmoor had a violent reputation.

Chandra Ghosh worked there in the late '80s.

Back then, it was notorious for treating

its mentally ill patients like prisoners.

It felt like the Government's asylum. It literally did.

You had women with long, blonde hair covering their faces

sitting there rocking...

The wards were Victorian, very old.

It was a very dark place.

By the late '80s, Broadmoor was a hospital in crisis.

So the Government set up a task force,

and at its head they put the TV celebrity

with a reputation for sorting things out.

The staff felt as though they had a DJ that was telling them what to do.

Keith Palmer and Neville Sandiford were nurses at Broadmoor at the time.

They could barely believe the role the Government had given him.

Savile was actually in charge of the hospital?

In charge of Broadmoor - lock, stock and barrel.

Morning. How are you?

And the charges and the doctors were dead against it.

But Jimmy Savile was Jimmy Savile.

He could do anything.

Whoever gave him that permission, with the keys

and then the task force, had to be a lunatic.

They had plenty of people to choose from.

The man was only a celebrity.

Now, this is where money is thrown away in building.

There was a £17 million bill to start with,

we spent £32 million on top of that...

Peter Jeffreys was a regular inspector of Broadmoor

in that period. He was concerned about the way patients were treated.

At the time I thought, "How on earth can Jimmy Savile sort out

"the serious accountability and management problems at Broadmoor?"

My understanding was he was allowed a free pass to go in and go out

whenever he wanted, to see individual patients of his choosing

when he wished to... That is quite extraordinary.

Edwina Currie was Health Minister and briefly responsible for Broadmoor

when Savile was appointed to the task force.

She says there was no reason then

to think his access to the hospital was odd.

My feeling is that it's not shocking that he had keys

or that he had access and was in and out on a regular basis.

Really?

Because he proved himself to be very useful at Broadmoor,

in the sense that when we asked his help in trying to improve matters,

he went above and beyond what anyone had suggested he might do.

Have you got everything that you need here?

We've obtained confidential Government documents from the time,

that suggest Savile's appointment to the task force

was pushed by a senior civil servant.

They also reveal that officials seemed starstruck

by the BBC celebrity.

This is a confidential memo for the personal attention of Mrs Currie

from a senior civil servant.

And throughout the document, it refers to "Dr Savile".

The document says that, "Dr Savile

"is going through each of the main departments like a dose of salts."

And it even lists ten points

that Dr Savile would like to see for further action at Broadmoor.

Jimmy Savile was no medical doctor.

He had an honorary doctorate in law.

We showed the documents to the former nurses.

Well, it says here, "Dr Savile promised he could improve Broadmoor

"beyond recognition within eight weeks, if he got the go-ahead."

What do you think of that?

-Did you just say, "Dr Savile"?

-THEY LAUGH

That's what it says. That's what they're calling him.

Does that surprise you, that the Department of Health

-would call him "Dr Savile"?

-Yes. Yes.

Well, that is awful.

It makes him out to be a doctor, in psychiatry.

Nurses in Broadmoor were at the time represented

by the Prison Officers' Association.

You look to me like a prison officer rather than a nurse.

Yes, it was basically a prison. We're jailers.

The Government wanted Broadmoor run more like a hospital.

When Savile took over, the union had just voted for an overtime ban.

And here, the story gets even stranger.

The confidential memos reveal that Savile told another civil servant

he could deal with the unions, and quickly transform Broadmoor.

The civil servant offers her own view of Jimmy Savile.

She says, "I doubt he'll let anyone stand in his way,

"and he clearly doesn't mind how many people get trampled

"underfoot in the process."

Savile told the Health Minister his unorthodox plans

to break the overtime ban.

He said he'd discovered some nurses were sub-letting staff houses

and fiddling their overtime claims.

He made it quite clear, he told me,

that he would use that against the staff if they misbehaved

and didn't call off the overtime ban.

-That sounds like blackmail.

-That sounds like blackmail to me as well.

And if it sounded like blackmail to you at the time

did you not think to say, "Hang on a minute,

"you can't run a top-security psychiatric hospital like that"?

I made a note of it at the time, because I was so surprised.

It was the 1980s. Some unions were at war

with the Conservative Government.

Back then, it seems, the DJ's plan wasn't so strange.

If this meant that we broke the strike and could help the patients,

then we had an issue of ends justifying means.

Within a month of Savile at the helm,

the overtime ban was called off.

The documents reveal just how influential he was at Broadmoor.

He drew up a list of dismissible offences for staff,

and was even given a say in hiring and firing.

The memo talks about the need to appoint

a new general manager to Broadmoor.

And it says, "Dr Savile may wish to press

"for Mr Franey in this position."

Alan Franey was an administrator at Leeds General Infirmary,

where Savile volunteered as a porter.

They became lifelong friends.

Soon after the memo was written,

Alan Franey was appointed General Manager of Broadmoor.

We are a special hospital, very special, providing

a very special service to some of society's most disordered offenders.

Alan Franey didn't want to be interviewed, but told us

he was first seconded to Broadmoor by his employer,

then applied in an open competition for the role of General Manager.

Whether through blackmail or charitable works,

the manipulative celebrity had a habit of getting his own way.

He let slip to Trevor Smith that he had his sights set on one thing.

I ask him,

"Why do you want to be in a place like this, with all your money?"

And his words to me, and I quote -

"When I obtain a knighthood, I will then stop."

"Because", he said, "I want a pit boy - which I was -

"to end up with a knighthood." He said, "Look how that would look."

And I've been friends with the last four, five Prime Ministers,

and I think they like a change from 365 days' total politics.

In his quest for a knighthood,

Savile made lots of friends in high places.

The former pit boy lunched with Margaret Thatcher at Number 10,

and took tea at Chequers.

-(You can knock on the door.)

-KNOCKING

This is their first TV encounter - Jim'll Fix It in 1977.

Hello, welcome.

I thought you were going to fix my getting into Number 10?

I've already done so. But I wanted to see you privately about that.

The relationship began because of advice from political advisors.

"You've got to reach out to ordinary people,

"to people who watch Jim'll Fix It and Coronation Street."

For Savile, the friendship was yet another cloak to hide behind.

Can I just point something out to you? Do you see what this says?

Hello, my dear Jimmy...

'He used to boast, didn't he, that he had connections in Number 10.'

-He said that to staff here?

-Yeah.

Yes, "I'm well-known at Number 10," and this sort of thing.

He would go over for tea with Margaret.

Savile bragged he'd spent 11 Christmases with Margaret Thatcher.

That's disputed by her close friend.

Well, if he did, he must have been hiding in a cupboard,

because I spent every Christmas Day at Chequers when Margaret

was Prime Minister and I never saw him there once.

From early on, power mattered to Savile.

Dan Davies interviewed him in his later years.

Savile told him about befriending powerful people back in Leeds.

I think it was insurance, really, for himself.

He had a reputation in the dance hall days for being

somebody who was heavy-handed and dealt with troublemakers,

you know, in a fairly physical fashion.

In 1983, Savile told The Sun about his violent past

and sexual exploits.

Honours Committee papers from the time show the expose nearly

scuppered his chances of a knighthood.

But the Prime Minister, impressed by the millions he'd

raised for Stoke Mandeville Hospital, kept putting his name forward.

That's lovely, Jim.

And can I thank you for everything you do for every good cause?

In 1990, Savile finally got his wish and became "Sir Jimmy".

It's mine, I'm telling you! It's mine! Tell them it's mine!

If he duped a whole lot of people,

OK, you can add Margaret to the list of people who got duped.

Savile's connections went to the very top

of the British Establishment.

For a time in the '80s, through charity work,

he became friendly with Prince Charles.

He'd swan in, a bit like a prince himself,

and do the sort of...the royal wave.

And then sort of make his way up to the office without any

accompaniment by a member of the household, and then disappear again.

When Charles and Diana's marriage was in crisis,

the BBC star even offered to help.

I think the general belief was that because he was a celebrity,

because everybody sort of thought that he was the bee's knees,

that he could do something to sort out the marriage

between the Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales,

a sort of Jim'll Fix It type of thing.

But there's no way it could have happened

because Diana wouldn't have had anything to do with him.

A spokesman for Prince Charles said...

On the few occasions Jimmy Savile visited St James's Palace...

We've been told the Prince called a meeting at his home

in Highgrove in the late '80s, about the closure

of emergency services at his local hospital at Tetbury.

Senior health officials were apparently gobsmacked

to find Jimmy Savile there.

In private, the DJ resorted to bully-boy tactics.

A manager with the Health Authority at the time told us

he understood that after Charles left,

Savile said the Prince wasn't happy, and even suggested

the Chairman wouldn't get a knighthood

if the downgrading of services at the hospital went ahead.

The Prince's spokesman said...

..after the Prince left the room.

And there's nothing like the kiss of life from a real lady

for to make you feel better again. Mwah!

And one from a young lady.

At St James's Palace, Savile's trademark greeting to women

raised eyebrows. But, even here, nothing was done about it.

He'd walk in and sort of go up to each one of the female employees

and take their hand. His bottom lip would curl out

and he'd run his bottom lip up their arm.

They sort of giggled at it, not wanting to complain about it.

When I do that, ladies and gentlemen,

I can clock the diamonds at the same time.

-Did anyone object?

-They didn't show any signs of objecting.

I suppose the feeling was that

if anybody complained, it would get back to the Prince of Wales.

I remember saying to him that I thought he was a dirty old man.

And he looked at me and said, "Not so much of the old."

Oh! As it happens!

The Prince's spokesman said...

At the Department of Health, one official put in writing

her own personal experience of Jimmy Savile in a memo.

The female civil servant signs off at the end,

"You might have warned me of his penchant

"for kissing ladies full on the mouth."

And, at Broadmoor, staff saw for themselves the way Savile

behaved with young girls. But again, nothing was done.

At a hospital charity day, he was exchanging autographs for kisses.

He kissed these girls, who were about 13,

smack-bang on the lips,

held his hand behind their neck to pull them forward.

And he virtually was giving them French kisses.

Now, the girl who I saw the most passionate kiss, was my niece.

-Did you say anything to him about it?

-No, I walked off,

because, you know, the girls were queuing up for him.

Even the bosses would laugh.

We all knew. We knew!

We've discovered serious allegations about Savile's behaviour

with patients at Broadmoor.

It suggests that Savile used his access at Broadmoor

to sexually abuse damaged and vulnerable women.

And some of them did try to complain at the time.

When Naomi Stanley was a nurse at a psychiatric hospital

in Cambridge, a woman was transferred there from Broadmoor.

The patient said that she and others

had been sexually assaulted by Savile.

I believed her absolutely.

The way she looked, everything about the way she came across,

she was traumatised, she was angry, she was incredibly upset.

Naomi says she told a manager

and two local police officers during a routine meeting at the hospital.

The nursing officer became quite angry with me,

and took me out of the room, gave me a verbal warning and said

I would probably be sacked if I ever said anything like that again.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Trust said

it couldn't comment because...

Cambridgeshire Police said they've found nothing on record about it.

We've been told by a former patient that other complaints

were made about Savile from inside Broadmoor 20 years ago.

A member of the Patients' Council at the time has told Panorama

that three women wrote to him in the mid-'90s

detailing serious complaints of sexual abuse by Savile.

He says he forwarded the complaints to Alan Franey,

then Chief Executive of the hospital.

But, in the end, still nothing was done.

Alan Franey, who was recommended to Broadmoor by Savile, told Panorama...

He said no issues about Savile were raised

at regular staff and patient meetings.

West London Mental Health NHS Trust, which now runs Broadmoor,

expressed sympathy for his victims but says it can't comment

while its joint investigation with the Department of Health is ongoing.

We've learned that the police have now received

at least 16 reports of abuse at Broadmoor.

Chandra Ghosh understands why few patients

complained during Savile's lifetime.

These were people that nobody believed.

So if they had in fact turned round and said that he had abused them

or raped them, nobody would have believed them.

You know, this was Mr Savile, you know, Jim'll Fix It.

Edwina Currie was responsible for Broadmoor for just four months.

She approved the decision to make Savile head of the task force.

Do you have any regrets about

playing a role in increasing his influence at Broadmoor?

It's a source of huge regret -

to me, to everybody that was ever involved with Savile.

During the time that I was responsible

we did not have a single complaint.

Had we known, we'd have stopped him,

and it would have been very easy to stop him.

I'd have just said to him, "Jimmy - the keys."

That decision for him to lead the task force

was not just a wrong decision, it was a bad decision

and a dangerous decision, because it gave authority

to a man who not only wasn't competent, but also was dangerous,

and manipulative and abusive.

The Department of Health

and the BBC will soon publish the results of their inquiries.

The hope is they'll shed more light on how Savile fooled

so many at the highest level.

A lot of people who I have the highest regard for

spoke highly of him at the time -

and do I question their judgment? No, human beings make mistakes.

There were so many mistakes, so many missed opportunities.

I think it is a very revealing story about the nation at large

because he cultivated this sense of oddness,

he was proud of standing apart -

but there was no desire or appetite for finding anything beneath that.

Jimmy Savile hid in plain sight his whole life.

And hundreds of victims have been denied the chance

to see Britain's most notorious sex offender brought to justice.

And on Wednesday at 10:35:

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