BBC is panicking over Savile sex scandal

Jimmy Savile in the '70s.  Source:The Huffington Post

The BBC is facing its worst crisis in 50 years as it tries to deal with veteran TV presenter Jimmy Savile’s paedophilia claims.

Newsnight editor Peter Rippon has stood down from his job pending a BBC investigation of his decision to scrap the Savile story because it clashed with a commemorative tribute to former DJ and presenter that was being made at the same time last October, when he died aged 84.

The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into Savile last week and is currently looking at 460 lines of enquiry based on testimony from nearly 300 witnesses via several police forces across the UK.

A Panorama programme broadcast on BBC1 last Monday revealed bosses knew of Savile’s suspected abuse of teenage girls four decades ago. It also showed key witness Karin Ward being interviewed last November saying Savile regularly abused her aged 14 and that she saw singer Gary Glitter having sex with another under-age girl in Savile’s BBC dressing room.

In fact several other celebrities have been already accused of child abuse on BBC premises or while they were employed by the organisation.

According to Commander Peter Spindler, who is investigating one of the most prolific sexual predators ever seen in Britain, there is ‘Savile on his own’, ‘Savile with others’ and a third category which is ‘others’.

Meanwhile nine past and present BBC employees are under investigation as part of the enquiry into sexual harassment, assault and inappropriate conduct on BBC premises. They are all staff members or contributors.

Without a doubt, the new BBC’s Director-General George Entwistle has been pitched into a news crisis that threatens his position. He has faced questions about his judgement as he chose to broadcast a tribute to Jimmy Savile last year despite being warned by senior executives that it was compromised by a Newsnight investigation into the DJ’s sex abuse.

Mr Entwistle at the time was still the BBC Controller of Knowledge Commissioning.

John Simpson, the BBC foreign editor, describes the scandal engulfing the Corporation as the worst crisis that he can remember in his five-decade long career and said:”BBC will be in a very dangerous position if it loses people’s trust".