Re: The Mark Williams-Thomas thread

[willowthewisp]

Hi Verdi,well,well,this smoothly anointed Ex Police Officer Mark William's Thomas involved in scandalous accusations of Police Officers deliberately withholding information from a Crown Court Trail Judge,whilst serving as a Surrey Police Officer,then keeping hold of his "Police notebook",with juicy titbits?

You see its far cheaper to have the Police, " the case up" than re-investigate it properly,prepare it for Crown court via CPS/DPP,with all defects apparent,then thrown out for non-disclosure grounds, by the defendants legal team genius?

Then on any IOPC investigation,blame the original Police Officers or other Police forces for their incompetent practices,yet they are supposedly trained to the same standards of "Hendon",so they never pass out as "Serving Police Constables",misconduct in Public Office apparent?

[nomendelta]

The gossip email "popbitch" featured MWT this week - interesting reading.

A few years ago, we told you that Simon Cowell’s company Syco was teaming up with policeman-turned-presenter Mark Williams-Thomas to produce a UK true crime series to rival Netflix’s hit, Making A Murderer. There’s certainly an interesting 10-part true crime documentary to be made – but we doubt it’s the story they’re thinking of.

Jonathan King’s latest trial collapsed this week, with the judge placing a lot of blame on the conduct of Surrey Police. Singled out for particular, excoriating scorn was former Surrey policeman… Mark Williams-Thomas.

The judge pointed out that in King’s first case (in 2001) MW-T was the officer assigned to take statements from the accusers. He then left the police force, but took the names and contact details of King’s accusers with him and tried to sell them to the media (a big no-no for police officers). Somehow, much of the info seemed to end up in the hands of… Max Clifford.

Meanwhile, Jonathan King was arrested and put up on a £150,000 bail. This meant he was unable to take up the offer to be a judge on ITV’s talent show, Popstars, so King recommended a then-unknown industry figure to take his place… Simon Cowell.

Cowell got a job on the franchise’s spin-off, Pop Idol (in 2001), partly as a result of King’s recommendation. Cowell didn’t need to do anything to thank King however, as he’d already chucked £50,000 in towards his bail.

And how did Cowell celebrate his newfound stardom? By hiring the PR services of… Max Clifford (who, you may remember, died three years into an eight year prison sentence for sexually assaulting women and girls).

There’s a load more to this story – so Netflix, if you’re reading, call us. We have your next hit right here.

[Verdi]

Focusing on the deceased and unproven historic cases of sex abuse, sure does keep the spotlight off the living prolific child sex abuse offenders of today.

Looks to me like Max Clifford was the custodian of an image protection racket for the wealthy.  He - a child sex abuser himself!

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[Verdi]

Transcript

Woman on phone (Naimh???) ?I'd like to see what kind of a Mickey Mouse search, you know, police investigation was done by the Portugal, err, police?

Nicky Campbell Well, I'll tell you what, let me stop you there.  I'll come back to you because, Mark Williams Thomas, you know stuff about, you know a lot about that, don't you?

Mark Williams-Thomas Good morning.  Yes I do.  Yes, I mean I think Gerry and Kate have come out now talking for two reasons. One, to try and keep that profile there and to talk about the effect it's had on them.  And I think its important to remember, of course, that as a parent you will never give up the search for your child.  Last year I met Patty Wetterling in the US. Her son was abducted at the age of eleven, Jacob. He's still missing.  And Patty still goes through it constantly every single day.  And bringing it to the home shores, Ruth Wilson who went missing on the 27^th of November, 95.  I know Ruth's parents very, very well and worked with them. And she's missing and she vanished at the age of sixteen. No sight or anything at all,  And these parents will never give up.  Every single phone call that they get, particularly around anniversaries and Christmas they wait in anticipation that they will get some news.  So Gerry and Kate will never give up.

But obviously what they are asking for now is a re-investigation over some of the elements of it.  And if we go back to the initial stage there was obviously an awful lot that was done, there was an awful lot that wasn't done.  But we mustn't forget that this is a Portuguese investigation and however much influence the British have over Portugal .it is ultimately their investigation.  They've conducted what they consider to be an investigation.  There are no new leads or inquiries that would require them to open the investigation.  The one thing that Gerry and Kate could do with all the Tapas would be to go back to the Portuguese police and say we will co-operate 100% with a review in relation to a reconstruction.  And don't forget that reconstruction was something that never took place and at the time I was certainly saying that reconstruction would have been very valuable but they would all have to co-operate.


NC I'm sure I remember a reconstruction on television, watching it being re-enacted.

MWT Not with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] other than they went back with their own investigators and did a kind of reconstruction.  The Portuguese police wanted to do a full reconstruction with all the Tapas and with everyone back in their?, going through the process (????????)

NC Well, where do you think Madeleine is now?

MWT Well the sad reality is that when children go missing the main age group for children to go missing is ten to 16. That's where the high numbers are. But between the ages of 1 and 4, which is obviously what[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] was at the time, within the period of 8 minutes and there are some interesting statistics here, is 20% of children between the ages of 1 and 4 will be located within 8 minutes.  99% of those children will be located within 196 minutes.  So that shows you the sheer, the percentage of children who will be recovered very quickly.  And out of those 98% of those children will be found within 1.2 kilometres of the location to which they have gone missing.

Where do I think Madeleine is now?  Well Madeleine was?  I still believe that Madeleine was abducted outside the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] She walked outside the apartment and that's where she was abducted.  Gerry and Kate have got to keep hope that Madeleine isn't dead and until such time as they have got some confirmation and direct intelligence that tells them that she is dead they will always live on the hope that she will return.  The sad reality is that is probably very unlikely.


Naimh Can I just say?

NC Yeah Naimh(?????)

Naimh ?that your statistics were for Britain and I am sure they don't hold true for Portugal.  I'm sure the British Government could have applied some pressure.  I mean, you could have a special investigation where the British police, I know if someone went missing here in England it would be a completely different scenario.  The child would be found in the next 24 hours, 48 hours or whatever.  You know, they need to have a special department, I mean instead of wasting money on stop and search.  I was hearing on your radio that they did a hundred thousand stop and searches and 99.9% were useless, you know.  Instead of spending those resources on frightening the community, you know, we should spend it on situations where we can help parents where children, especially young children, 1 -10, go missing, abroad, you know.

MWT I think, I'll just pick up on that point. I think you are absolutely right as far as knowledge as to how to investigate missing children has improved incredibly.  And I was at a conference yesterday, the national Missing Persons Conference in Coventry and there is clearly an awful lot is now being done, is being done co-ordinated using agencies as well as the police service to help find missing children.  And in Portugal they are some way behind.  I think from a policing point of view they are probably five, maybe six years, maybe even more than that behind in the way they deal with missing children and indeed some of their other investigations.  But I think now, if a child goes missing in the UK, there is a incredible amount of resources that are pulled in and worked on to be able to find that child very quickly and, of course, we have experience of that.

NC OK. Its 9.30 and I am grateful to Naimh(????) and also John in Dunbarton


[Thanks to pamalam at gerrymccannsblog.co.uk]
Mark Williams-Thomas was never officially assigned to investigating the case of Madeleine McCann so is he doing selling himself across the nation's media?  He's not even consistant, his opinion is up and down like a fiddlers elbow.


What a con!

[sharonl]

Quote:  Mark Williams-Thomas  

I still believe that Madeleine was abducted outside the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.][You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] She walked outside the apartment and that's where she was abducted

If this was the case, how does MWT explain the McCanns claims: -

1.  The shutters were jemmied
2.  The curtains were open and blowing
3.  The door was not in the position that they left it
4.  The abductor drugged the twins
5.  Gerry had only just checked on Madeleine - she was asleep
6.  The door was not wide open when Kate entered the apartment - Madeleine would not have carefully closed the door behind her, would she?


Quote  Kate McCann "I knew that she had been abducted because of the state of the place"

Were the McCanns lying Mark?  Why would they do that if Madeleine had been abducted?

Also Gerry was just outside the apartment chatting to Jez Wilkins and passed by Jane Tanner.  Did no-one see or hear Madeleine or this abductor?  Surely she would have screamed if someone picked her up awake?

Tannerman was allegedly carrying a sleeping child

[Verdi]

To add - how does he explain this ..

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Answers in a plain brown envelope please - it'll get there ....

[sharonl]

  I would like to hear more of Marks' theory, a timeline would be handy.  Then perhaps we could ask him to explain a few things.

[Verdi]

Hey - maybe he would like to join CMoMM to set the record straight .

[Keitei]

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Mark Williams-Thomas

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] made this Freedom of Information request to [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

[size=16]Currently waiting for a response from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], they should respond promptly and normally no later than 7 September 2018([You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]).


Dear Surrey Police,
I refer you to this online article: 
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"One of the complainants in the case – he cannot, of course, be named but we can call him Complainant A – was a man whose statement had originally been taken in 2000 by a police officer in the Surrey Police. When this blog was originally published it was unclear whether identification of the police officer had been authorised by the judge; it is now clear that his name can be reported. It is Mark Williams-Thomas, now a journalist and TV presenter. I am afraid that until I have a chance to update the post properly he still appears below as “Mr X.”"
"When Mr X left the force he took his notebooks relating to inquiries into Mr King with him. They were, as the Prosecution said, not Mr X’s to keep; they were official documents belonging to Surrey Police. A police officer’s notebook, of course, is always of great importance, being in many cases the only contemporaneous record of relevant events. 
No attempt was made to recover the notebooks by Surrey Police, and nor did Mr X, return them to the police. Why he did not return them voluntarily once he knew that Mr King had been charged and put on trial is not explained."
"Three years after Mr X left the police, he was prosecuted for an unrelated offence. That much was well known, and he was in fact acquitted. However, what was not disclosed to the defence until a very late stage is that during the investigation into the other offence, a document was found on his computer “offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King.” This information came into the hands of Surrey Police’s Anti-Corruption Unit in 2014 – what it was doing between 2003 and 2014 is not revealed in the judgment – but the Anti-Corruption Unit did not pass it on to the officers investigating Mr King. "
REQUESTS. 
1.Provide all data showing what attempts you have made to recover the officer's notebook. 
2.Provide "document [that] was found on his computer “offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King.” 
3.Provide cost of the failed King prosection. 
4.Provide a list of officers and staff who have been disciplined as a result of the failed prosecution. 
5. Confirm or deny if you have reported yourself to the IOPC for the disclosure issues. 
6. Provide all correspondence between you and the Surrey P&CC on this failed prosecution.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Williams

Smith, Tony 14860, Surrey Police [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Dear Edward WILLIAMS,
Freedom of Information: 000630/18
I write in connection with your FOI request which was recently received.
We will respond within 20 working days to this request.
Yours Sincerely,
Neil Coventry 
Information Access Team 
Surrey Police 
Telephone 01483 630007
[/size]

[ferrotty]

[size=60]In today's Sunday mail. [/size]

[size=60]How a self-promoting TV detective, obsessed with celebrity sex abusers, helped police ruin the lives of Sir Cliff and a string of other famous faces... who all turned out to be TOTALLY INNOCENT  [/size]

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[sharonl]

By [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Published: 23:15, 3 November 2018  | Updated: 19:52, 4 November 2018




Question: What do the entertainers Sir Cliff Richard, Jim Davidson and Freddie Starr, as well as the late former Home Secretary Lord Brittan, have in common?
Answer: They have all lived – and in the case of Lord Brittan, died – under the shadow of being falsely accused of historical sexual abuse, although none of them was ever charged with a crime, much less convicted.
And in every case their names have been dragged through the mud thanks in part to the actions of one man, a former policeman turned award-winning TV ‘detective’ called Mark Williams-Thomas.
Williams-Thomas was the man behind ITV’s 2012 documentary revealing the late Jimmy Savile was a paedophile.

Since then he has become a regular fixture on This Morning and presenter of further documentaries, including The Investigator, made by Simon Cowell’s company Syco.
Savile, of course, became a touchstone for a widespread belief that numerous powerful paedophiles had been allowed to get away with terrible crimes. 
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Mark Williams-Thomas featured in The Investigator: A British Crime Story. He leaked the names of up to 20 suspects linked to Operation Yewtree 
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Sir Cliff Richard gives interview after record damages were awarded to him against the BBC

Video playing bottom right...
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Detective who broke Jimmy Savile scandal describes deceased presenter


Cameron slams 'abhorrent' Syria chemical weapons attack
Understandably, perhaps, the author of Savile’s posthumous downfall became determined to build on this first success.
But a major investigation by this newspaper today poses a troubling question: in his zeal to claim further scalps did Williams-Thomas help ruin the lives of a string of famous men who turned out to be totally innocent?
For Williams-Thomas has openly boasted that he was the source of up to 20 suspects’ names being submitted to Operation Yewtree, the sprawling, multi-million-pound Metropolitan Police inquiry into alleged abuse by celebrities established after the Savile film.
Then, when he learned that officers planned to investigate particular individuals, he publicised their names, even though police inquiries were at an early stage.
The credibility he derived from the Savile documentary meant his information had a massive media impact. In some cases, he issued regular breathless ‘updates’ on police inquiries.
The result, according to one of Britain’s top detectives with experience of investigating historical abuse, was a fiasco which ‘tainted the whole investigation, created a presumption of guilt, and ruined innocent people’s lives’.
Williams-Thomas yesterday claimed The Mail on Sunday investigation was ‘littered with incorrect information’, but when asked what this was, he refused to answer.
Former Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Paul Settle headed a parallel inquiry into claims of abuse by politicians – including Lord Brittan – running at the same time as Yewtree.
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Freddie Starr when it was announced on May 2014 he will not be prosecuted after spending 18 months on bail for sex crime allegations
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Jim Davidson on This Morning after he was crowned the winner of Celebrity Big Brother in 2014
His staff were based in the same, open-plan office in Hammersmith, West London, as some of the Yewtree team. He says he directly experienced the extraordinary efforts made by Williams-Thomas to influence both investigations.
‘Operation Yewtree seemed to have a policy of arresting first and asking questions later,’ Mr Settle told The Mail on Sunday.
‘Their attitude seemed to be, “There’s been an allegation, go and nick him”, before they had even done the basics, such as establishing whether the accuser and the suspect had been in the same country at the relevant time.’
Then, Mr Settle says, the suspect’s name would be publicised. This, the ex-detective says, was ‘reckless in the extreme. If you put famous people’s names out there, you may not merely destroy their livelihoods. There’s a great danger it will lead to a bandwagon effect, generating further, false allegations, so the potential for miscarriages of justice is huge.’
The most prominent Yewtree victim of all was Sir Cliff Richard, whose name was leaked to the BBC – not by Williams-Thomas – allowing the broadcaster to air footage of the raid on his Berkshire apartment in 2014.
The singer faced two years of anguish before finally learning he was not going to be charged.

...

Sir Cliff Richard breaks down as he speaks about police raid




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Williams-Thomas kept the story about Cliff Richard alive by revealing to journalists that two of the complainants had appealed to have the CPS decision not to charge him reversed
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Lord Leon Brittan arriving home at the height of the allegations made against him in 2014
This newspaper has established that one of Sir Cliff’s accusers, a man known as ‘David’, had already been exhaustively investigated by Mr Settle and his team, and found to be a suggestible, vulnerable fantasist. David, who had learning difficulties and had been in care, told them he was raped as a boy by both Sir Cliff and Elton John at a sex party, at which media baron Rupert Murdoch and former Labour deputy leader Lord Prescott were also guests.
‘Needless to say, this didn’t happen,’ Mr Settle said.
Yet the South Yorkshire investigation into Sir Cliff took David seriously. Legal sources have confirmed that although the Met had already decided he was not a reliable witness, South Yorkshire detectives – who took over the Cliff Richard investigation from Yewtree – treated him as a ‘victim’.
David has told the MoS they interviewed him several times, and asked him to give evidence against Sir Cliff. Unaccountably, Mr Settle’s conclusion that he was not a reliable witness was apparently not passed on to South Yorkshire.
And the name of the man who triggered the police inquiry by telling Operation Yewtree that he had evidence that Sir Cliff had sexually abused a child? Mark Williams-Thomas. He has boasted about it in a series of tweets.
On August 17, 2014, three days after the BBC used a helicopter to film the raid on Sir Cliff’s apartment, Williams-Thomas was already claiming credit for it. ‘Some media reports are misleading,’ he tweeted. ‘I passed the original allegation and other info to Op Yewtree in 2013.’
Williams-Thomas, 48, spent 11 years with Surrey Police, leaving in 2000 with the lowly rank of detective constable. He later spent two years working for a firm that removed chewing gum from pavements.
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Former police detective Williams-Thomas unmasked Jimmy Savile in his ITV documentary 
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Jim Davidson was told eight months after his arrest he would not face any charges of sexual assault 
But his real goal was to make it in television. And starting by acting as adviser to crime dramas, he gradually began to get work.
His lucky break came when he found himself on a plane next to BBC journalist Meirion Jones, who asked him to help with a Newsnight film on Savile, which the BBC eventually, and controversially, axed.
Williams-Thomas took the story to ITV and won national acclamation and a string of awards.
In the post-Savile frenzy about other alleged celebrity abusers, Williams-Thomas boasted he was ‘working closely’ with Operation Yewtree, and was ‘sharing new leads and contact details for victims’. He claimed he had a ‘dossier’ featuring a ‘catalogue’ of allegations against about 20 suspects, including ‘some household names’.
In some cases, he stated, his information had already led to arrests – though he has not specified whose.
Celebrities investigated as a result of allegations to Operation Yewtree who were never charged include not only Sir Cliff but also Freddie Starr, Jim Davidson, Jimmy Tarbuck and Paul Gambaccini. The latter has been awarded ‘substantial’ damages by the Crown Prosecution Service, and is suing the police.
Publication of suspects’ names by police in cases like Operation Yewtree would now breach professional guidelines issued by the College of Policing, which say that if a name is released before charge, there must be ‘exceptional circumstances’. However, seasoned detectives say that the guidelines merely enshrine procedures which were already well established in the period 2012 to 2014, when Yewtree was at its height.

...

Freddie Starr can't speak from relief as CPS drops sex attack charges





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Lord Brittan died under the shadow of being falsely accused of historical sexual abuse 
One former detective said: ‘The only time you release a suspect’s name before charge is if you don’t have the evidence to charge and there’s a real danger to the public. Otherwise, you just don’t do it – it’s reckless and unethical.’
Freddie Starr
Tweeted 24 minutes after comic’s arrest
WILLIAMS-THOMAS had close contacts with several newspapers, but his weapon of choice when breaking the news of celebrity arrests was Twitter.
His first came at 18.09 on November 1, 2012: ‘Breaking: Freddie Starr under arrest [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]’ he announced – the hashtag ensuring that readers would know exactly what type of investigation Starr was facing.
The stature conferred on Williams-Thomas by the Savile film meant his tweet was swiftly followed up by the BBC and every newspaper. The Met then put out a statement which confirmed that a ‘man in his 60s from Warwickshire was arrested at approximately 17.45 on suspicion of sexual offences and taken into custody’.
The arrest took place just 24 minutes before Williams- Thomas’s tweet.
Williams-Thomas issued further tweets about Starr as police inquiries progressed. ‘Freddie [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] arrest which I broke yesterday dominates front pages,’ he tweeted on November 2, going on to add fresh details: ‘He was bailed after approx 6 hours in custody [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].’
Later that day he added an update, saying Starr was still being interviewed ‘as a continuation’ of his previous interrogation. More tweets followed over the ensuing months as Starr faced the agony of waiting on bail, not knowing whether he would be charged. It wasn’t for another 18 months that he learnt he wouldn’t be. By then, his wife had left him and his physical and mental health were wrecked.
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Jim Davidson with wife Alison in 1987. He was linked to Operation Yewtree by Mark Williams- Thomas
Jim Davidson
WRONGLY LINKED to Jimmy Savile
ANOTHER celebrity probed by Yewtree whose near-downfall was first announced by Williams- Thomas was comedian Jim Davidson. Unlike most of the inquiry’s targets, he was accused of sexually assaulting adult women, but that did not stop Williams-Thomas making the link with Jimmy Savile.
In a tweet posted at 19.16 on January 2, 2013, he wrote: ‘I can confirm that one of the entertainers arrested today by Op Yewtree is Jim Davidson [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].’
Other supposed ‘victims’ came forward after the ensuing flood of publicity, but eight months after his arrest, Davidson was told he would not face any charges.
In a book that he wrote about his ordeal, he said he first learnt of this not from the police or Crown Prosecution Service but a reporter, who told him the source was ‘the ex-detective that did the TV programme exposing Savile’s behaviour’.
Lord Brittan
GAVE SECRET ADIVCE TO fantasist
AT THE end of February 2013, Williams-Thomas told a newspaper he was investigating sexual abuse by a ‘very significant individual’ at Elm Guest House in Barnes, South-West London. By this time, claims had been circulating on the internet that in the 1980s this had been a ‘gay brothel’ where children were abused, and that among those who stayed there were Sir Cliff and Leon Brittan, the former Tory Home Secretary.
One of their sources was a former social worker and convicted fraudster called Chris Fay. He had been trying to spread claims about Elm Guest House and ‘VIP paedophiles’ for many years. In 1990 he introduced ‘David’ – the fantasist who went on to accuse Sir Cliff – to a journalist called Gill Priestly, now deceased. In a series of taped interviews with her, David made astonishing claims: that he had been sexually assaulted by Lord Brittan, and ‘trafficked’ to Amsterdam, where he was forced to watch as children were raped and murdered to make ‘snuff’ porn movies.
Police documents disclosed by the Crown Prosecution Service and seen by this newspaper say Priestly played her tapes to Williams-Thomas while he was a serving police officer. The papers say that at the time police took no action and that in 2002, after Williams-Thomas left the police, she gave some of her tapes to him for ‘safe keeping’.
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Lord Brittan pictured in 1987. He was caught-up in lurid stories about the non-existent ‘Westminster paedophile ring’
In 2013, then Detective Chief Inspector Paul Settle’s team spent more than 70 hours interviewing David, who made many of the same allegations. But Mr Settle says: ‘We knew very quickly the Elm Guest House claims were nonsense. David was very vulnerable and very suggestible, and his allegations were sheer fantasy.’
His story about the ‘sex party’ with Sir Cliff, Elton John and Murdoch was, Mr Settle added, only one of many outlandish claims.
Then, in October 2013, the police records say, Williams-Thomas produced the tapes of Gill Priestly’s interviews with David. He approached Mr Settle’s boss, Detective Superintendent David Gray, and played them to him and a detective constable at the ITV studios. The full contents of the tapes have not been disclosed.
Mr Settle said: ‘We had already finished with David, but here was Williams-Thomas apparently trying to reincarnate him as a witness. It was quite apparent the tapes were the musings of a fantasist.’
However, others were taking David’s allegations seriously.
He was introduced to reporters from the now-defunct Exaro News website. This spectacularly unreliable witness became a source for multiple, lurid stories about the non-existent ‘Westminster paedophile ring’ used to support bogus claims of child rape and murder by Lord Brittan and others.
Eventually, these were debunked by a Panorama programme in 2015. David was to be one of its star witnesses, admitting he had made false allegations because he was suggestible and felt under pressure.
Williams-Thomas had promised to consider giving Panorama the Priestly tapes, but failed to do so, say BBC sources. Then, after David had been filmed, Williams-Thomas sent him an email, urging him either to insist on concealing his identity or not to appear at all, drafting messages that he suggested David should copy and send to the BBC.
‘DON’T tell the BBC we have spoken,’ he wrote, ‘just say you have spoken to a friend who has given you advice.’
Williams-Thomas refused to say why he sent this email. It is possible he believed he was acting in David’s best interests.
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Cliff Richard was accused of assaulting a 15-year-old boy at Bramall Lane football ground in 1983
Sir Cliff
Attack ON POLICE WHEN star was cleared
AFTER claiming credit on Twitter for starting the police inquiry into Sir Cliff, Williams-Thomas did not appear to be anxious that publicity about the investigation might have irreparably damaged the reputation of an innocent and much-loved star.
In a further tweet, he noted the ‘incredible co-ordination btwn South Yorkshire press officer at scene and BBC so BBC chopper is in place to catch property removed’. It is not clear exactly what Williams-Thomas meant by this.
In other tweets that autumn, he was critical of the BBC filming the raid. Yet the story told by the first complainant against Sir Cliff, whose allegations had been given to Yewtree by Williams-Thomas, always seemed doubtful.
The man was claiming that Sir Cliff assaulted him in 1983 when he was 15 during a Billy Graham Christian rally in a room used to store goalposts at Bramall Lane, the Sheffield United Football Club ground.
In fact, it emerged when the claims were investigated that there was no Graham rally in Sheffield until 1985, and there was no room at Bramall Lane used to store goalposts. The man said the team’s colours were blue and white, which belong to Sheffield Wednesday, not Sheffield United, whose colours are red and white.
But Williams-Thomas continued to tweet about the case.

For example, at 5.16pm on February 25, 2015, he announced there was ‘some major news due to break shortly regarding the ongoing [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] child sex abuse investigation’.
This turned out to be the next day’s Daily Mirror – its front page headline proclaimed: ‘Sir Cliff facing new sex claims.’
On June 21, 2015, 11 months after the raid, Williams-Thomas tweeted that ‘contrary to media reports, I can categorically confirm South Yorks continues its multiple allegations investigation of Cliff Richard’.
On September 20, lest anyone think the police were easing off, he revealed: ‘Investigation into allegations against Cliff Richard is still very much alive & has grown in size over past months’.
A few weeks later, the new resources had, it seems, produced results. Williams-Thomas tweeted on November 5: ‘Breaking news – [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] has been re-interviewed under caution by South Yorkshire Police.’
On January 16, 2016, he added: ‘Cliff Richard investigation has developed new lines of inquiry – file expected to go to CPS within next 8 weeks.’
In fact, the police did not send a file to the CPS until May 10. Prosecutors took barely a month to decide Sir Cliff should not be charged.
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Sir Cliff Richard with friend Gloria Hunniford at The Pride of Britain Awards last week. Williams-Thomas tweeted updates about the police investigation before any official decision to charge was announced 
Yet even then, Williams-Thomas kept the story alive by revealing to journalists in August that two of the complainants had appealed via their lawyers to have the CPS decision reversed – forcing Sir Cliff to endure a further agonising, two-month wait until the appeals were rejected.
The case was closed, and like a ship’s captain headed for the rocks, Williams-Thomas coolly changed course.
He tweeted on December 22, 2016: ‘The Cliff Richard raid by South Yorkshire Police was totally mishandled.’
After the High Court issued its damning judgement over the Corporation’s coverage of the raid in July this year, he added: ‘Sir Cliff Richard has won his privacy case against the BBC… The way in which the police and BBC behaved was shocking and he deserved to win.’
It is only fair to point out that in some cases publicised by Williams-Thomas, including Rolf Harris, alleged sex offenders have been convicted and jailed. But the MoS has learnt that lawyers representing one of them, the late publicist Max Clifford, will next month fight an appeal which may see his convictions overturned.
Williams-Thomas tweeted about his case many times. Among the issues the court will consider is whether allegations made by victims who came forward following publicity were unreliable.
Yesterday both the Met and South Yorkshire Police refused to answer questions from the MoS about the falsely-accused celebrities and their relationship with Williams-Thomas.
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<img id="i-aa67c427b9ba8813" src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/11/04/00/5737662-6350331-Jim_Davidson_was_accused_of_sexually_assaulting_adult_women_and_-a-10_1541291476999.jpg" height="474" width="634" alt="Jim Davidson was accused of sexually assaulting adult women and his name was tweeted by the TV 'detective' Williams- Thomas, but he was never charged or convicted " class="blkBorder img-share"/>

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Jim Davidson was accused of sexually assaulting adult women and his name was tweeted by the TV 'detective' Williams- Thomas, but he was never charged or convicted 
A Met spokesman said: ‘The information regarding these individuals was passed to the Met via a number of sources. The Met does not confirm or identify sources of information.’
He said the force only names those arrested ‘in exceptional circumstances’. South Yorkshire also said it ‘would neither confirm nor deny the sources of any information’.
Last week this newspaper put 18 detailed questions to Williams- Thomas, asking for his comments – including whether he regretted publicising the names of suspects who turned out to be innocent. He refused to answer any of them, claiming we had a ‘vendetta’ against him.
He said: ‘It is clear the focus of your “investigation” into me and of your proposed article is to get me to identify my many sources in relation to the cases that I have covered and investigated. 
Put simply, I will not reveal my contacts, or sources, or do anything that might lead to them being revealed. 
Your approach is disappointing and very concerning and looks focused on trying to silence people from making reports to the authorities.’
He also claimed our email to him was ‘littered with inaccuracy and incorrect information’. Asked repeatedly to say what this inaccuracy was, he refused.
Meanwhile, there are signs that the air may be starting to leak from the Williams-Thomas balloon.
Last night an ITV spokesman said the channel ‘is not currently working with Mark on a new series of either The Investigator or the This Morning Unsolved feature item’.
Yet still Williams-Thomas’s hunger to expose celebrity paedophiles shows no sign of abating. 
Only last week, he made fresh claims there are still high-profile paedophiles ‘out there’ who think they are ‘untouchable’ and have not been brought to justice: ‘There are two particular high-profile individuals that I know about who I’m convinced are sex offenders...’
Happily the law requires rather more evidence than the firm belief of Mark Williams-Thomas.

[willowthewisp]

Hi Sharon,So a question must be raised as to has No UK Police Force chose to invite Mr Mark Williams Thomas along to One of their Offices to investigate why,he has named these person's in News Paper articles,on alleged sexual Offences?

No mention of Max Clifford who was found guilty of Sex charges with young Girls

80% of his claims have now been against innocent person's,where the UK Police have taken No further action,Savile is dead,was he innocent aswell!
Yet "Nick" is charged with eleven Counts of Perverting a Course of Justice and One of Fraud,that the Metropolitan Police filled his forms in for him?

So why hasn't Mr Mark Williams Thomas been charged with Perverting a Course of Justice,a different rule applies to retired Coppers?

So either the UK Police have Not uncovered the evidence to the charges on sexual cases or there was No evidence to charge them!

Are the Metropolitan Police Service concluding that No Sexual misconduct was carried out in Elm Guest House/Operation Yewtree,very similar to the accusations at Haute De La Guranne,Jersey?

[Jill Havern]

Interesting snippet from Private Eye 1480, p.38 (courtesy of PeterMac):

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[Jonal]

Is anyone following R v Belfield at Nottingham Crown Court, that made the news this week? A former BBC local radio presenter has gone on trial accused of stalking eight people, including tv and radio presenter Jeremy Vine. Alex Belfield, who lives in Nottingham, is alleged to have posted or sent mocking and abusive social media messages, videos and email. He pleads not guilty.

Jeremy Vine gave evidence on Wednesday, 14 July 2022, in the second week of a trial that is expected to last four weeks. Mr Vine told the court that someone he barely knew directed him to a video online, posted by Mr Belfield which contained a reference to Jeremy Vine that Mr Vine described as unpleasant. Mr Vine said that a famous ex-policeman, Mark Williams-Thomas, had seen the trouble he was getting into with Mr Belfield and came to give support.

Cross-examined by Mr Belfield, who represented himself, Mr Vine was asked whether Mark Williams-Thomas was an acquaintance, as Mr Vine had said, or a friend, as Mark Williams-Thomas had said. Mr Vine replied, "I think it's lovely of him to consider me a friend."

Mark Williams-Thomas appeared as a witness on Thursday.

The trial continues.

[Verdi]

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[sharonl]

Investigator who exposed Jimmy Savile has new case against 'very significant' person

After his death at age 84 in October 2011, the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal broke when it emerged the media personality has used his position to abuse hundreds of people throughout his life.
By ROSIE JEMPSON
14:06, Sun, Oct 2, 2022 | UPDATED: 14:09, Sun, Oct 2, 2022

Former police detector Mark Williams-Thomas exposed Savile's crimes, which saw 19 arrests and seven prison convictions on the back of his investigation. Now, the same detective has warned that a "very significant" person is waiting to be exposed for similar crimes.

The former investigator's revelations about the once-loved TV personality shocked the world in 2012.

His award-winning film, The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, told of five women who revealed that they suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Savile.

Hundreds more came forward a year after he died, meaning his victims never got justice.

Operation Yewtree was subsequently launched by the Met Police, which saw 19 other, some high-profile, people arrested, and seven of them were sent to prison.

Gary Glitter, Rolf Harris, DJ Ray Teret, Stuart Hall and Max Clifford were some others who were sentenced for sexual assault crimes under Operation Yewtree.

But now, 10 years later, Mr Williams-Thomas has claimed that another high-profile celeb has committed similar crimes.

Speaking to the i, he said: “There are still people out there who are untouchable.

"There is one very significant person who I've done everything to try and get prosecuted because he is clearly a child sex offender."

"To date, the CPS won't prosecute. The police and I have tried really hard to get there.

"He will die in due course and then the floodgates will open in the same way they did with Savile. That's not right. But justice takes many different forms.

"The truth is no broadcaster would have done a programme about Savile when he was alive - we live in a society where there are some people you can't take on and that's really sad.”

The detector didn't divulge any further details about who the "significant person" was.

But he hinted that the case could come to light if the victims gave up their right to anonymity.

He explained: “I've seen the value of lifting anonymity for victims to come forward. It's one of the reasons the CPS didn't have evidence to prosecute Savile when he was alive.

“The media plays a vital role in getting victims to come forward by publicising names, but they have to consider the impact on the accused because there is no more abhorrent crime than child sex abuse.”

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[Verdi]

Crime

Former detective believes Maddie McCann’s ‘real abductor and killer has got free’

Matthew Hart - Oct 08, 2022

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A former detective turned investigative journalist has made the concerning claim that Madeleine McCann’s “real abductor” could still be at large despite authorities recently naming a suspect in the long-running mystery.

Madeleine went missing from her bed at a resort while holidaying with her parents in Portugal on May 3, 2007. The case of the then three-year-old’s disappearance attracted considerable global attention. Despite a long-running investigation, Madeleine’s whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

A major breakthrough was made in the case when prosecutors from the Faro Department of Criminal Investigation and Prosecution (DIAP) announced in a statement on Thursday, April 21 that a “person was made an arguido” which translates to a person of interest or suspect.

“As part of the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007, a person was made an arguido on Wednesday,” the statement said.

“The person was made an arguido by the German authorities in execution of a request for international judicial cooperation issued by the Public Ministry of Portugal.

“The investigation has been carried out with the cooperation of the English and German authorities.”

Despite the seemingly major step forward in the investigation, journalist Mark Williams-Thomas believes the evidence presented by the German prosecutor “is not true”.

His belief that the evidence is false came after analysing a theory put forward by prosecutors regarding a telephone number that was used by the recently named suspect close to where McCann went missing.

An investigation by Williams-Thomas and his team found that the number was not only placed a fair distance away from the site of the toddler’s disappearance but also that the number belonged “to somebody else”.

“The whole public I think have been fed a story from the prosecutor in Germany,” Williams-Thomas told Dan Woottonas as part of the Channel 5 documentary Madeleine McCann: The Case Against Christian B.

“They cannot place him on the night using that telephone number.

“So unfortunately, the evidence that has been put into public domain by the German prosecutor – and I’ll give him some benefit, there may be a language barrier – is not true.”

Williams-Thomas went on to highlight that directing the focus of the investigation on the newly named suspect could mean those responsible remain free from prosecution.

“The problem is, if you focus solely on him, the real abductor and killer has got free,” he said.

It has been almost 15 years since Madeleine went missing while on holiday with her family in Portugal and despite the extensive investigation finding no answers as to the toddler’s fate, her parents have never given up hope.

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After authorities named a suspect in their daughter’s case, Madeleine’s parents took to Facebook to issue an official statement on the development regarding their “beloved daughter”.

“We welcome the news that the Portuguese authorities have declared a German man an “arguido” in relation to the disappearance of our beloved daughter Madeleine,” the statement said.

“This reflects progress in the investigation, being conducted by the Portuguese, German and British authorities. We are kept informed of developments by the Metropolitan police.

“It is important to note the “arguido” has not yet been charged with any specific crime related to Madeleine’s disappearance. Even though the possibility may be slim, we have not given up hope that Madeleine is still alive and we will be reunited with her.”

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[PeterMac]

A lot of what has been put into the public domain as being allegedly directly from Wolters is through Clarke and the Olive Press. 
Make of that what you will.

Fibres in the van
Orthodontic surgery
Extensive Facio-maxilliary surgery
cruciform scar or tattoo on thigh

All total inventions.

[CaKeLoveR]

M W-T is right in one respect - those involved in Madeleine's disappearance are still at large.

[Verdi]

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[PeterMac]

Mark Double Barrelled-Thomas strikes again
This time with unparalleled drivel.

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In 2007, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] from her family's villa in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and she was never seen again.
Since that tragic day, there have been a number of leads police have followed, but they have been unable to determine once and for all [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and who, if anyone, took her.
However, investigative journalist [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], who was responsible for exposing Jimmy Savile's sick crimes, says he thinks he has an idea of what happened.
Speaking to LADbible for the Extraordinary Lives [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], the 52-year-old said he had pored over the evidence, and spoken to a number of witnesses about Maddie's disappearance, and come to one conclusion.
He told us: "So when I looked at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]... I brought all the information together, read all the police files, I spoke to all those key witnesses around there, and I had a contact via one person removed from the family, and so I was able to pull all this information together.
"And my conclusion is that on that night of Madeleine's disappearance, she woke up, looking for mum and dad, and she'd been told the following morning that if she were to wake up, the parents were only in the tapas bar, which was just across the courtyard.
"What we do know is that her brother and sister had woken up on the previous nights a number of times, and I suspect as a result of that, Madeleine thought, well, where is mum and dad, as they'd been out on those previous nights as well."
Williams-Thomas went on: "So I believe she woke up, she left the apartment, we know the apartment was insecure, the back patio door was open to allow some flow of air, it was very hot.
"And so I believe she got up and went wandering looking for her parents."
Williams-Thomas explained that Maddie would have had to have gone out onto a main road in order to get around to the courtyard, where her parents were.
He said: "What we know about abductions is when they are stranger abductions, they are opportunistic.
"If you abduct a child and you know who that child is, which is the majority of child abductions, then, of course, that's planned and you know who the child is.
"But when it's opportunistic, when it's not somebody known to the child, that is not planned, in terms of who the victim is."

Adding: "So I believe she walked out on the road, and in a matter of seconds, was abducted by a predator outside."
***
Where do we even start with tosh like this ?
I brought all the information together, . . . . and so I was able to pull all this information together.   What does this MEAN ?
"And my conclusion is that on that night of Madeleine's disappearance, she woke up, looking for mum and dad, and she'd been told the following morning that if she were to wake up . . ."   This defies analysis in a Euclidian universe.   How can you have told some who disappeared anything the following morning ?
"if she were to wake up, the parents were only in the tapas bar, which was just across the courtyard.   1.  The conditional makes no sense since the parents were in the Tapas bar whether she woke or not.   2.   I thought MWT claims to have been to the scene.   Where is this COURTYARD ?  Is this new evidence we have never seen before. ?

"So I believe she woke up, she left the apartment, we know the apartment was insecure, the back patio door was open to allow some flow of air, it was very hot.'     This undoubtedly IS new evidence.  Sadly there is no record of it anywhere in the files.  But now we have the patio door OPEN to allow a flow of air, and the weather has gone from being freezing and windy (JT wearing partner's fleece, and KM's whooshing curtains) to being very HOT. Not 'warm'.   HOT
""And so I believe she got up and went wandering looking for her parents."    A conclusion based - "and so . . ." on no evidence whatsoever. Hence the giveaway use of the words "I believe" ?
"Maddie would have had to have gone out onto a main road in order to get around to the courtyard, where her parents were."    It is not a main road.  It is a side street, off a side street.  
"If you abduct a child and you know who that child is, which is the majority of child abductions, then, of course, that's planned and you know who the child is.
"But when it's opportunistic, when it's not somebody known to the child, that is not planned, in terms of who the victim is."
Adding: "So I believe she walked out on the road, and in a matter of seconds, was abducted by a predator outside."
I confess I can make no sense of this at all.
But the extraordinary coincidence of a small child in the street at exactly the same time and place, to the second and to the square metre as a predatory paedo*** stretches credibility slightly beyond its normal breaking point.

[crusader]

Perhaps he's come to this conclusion by talking to the person who is removed from the family who told him it was hot that night.

He believes the McCann's are innocent, so he must believe their statements of finding whooshing curtains, window and shutter open, patio door left slightly ajar as they had left it, child gate closed, gate at bottom of patio steps. closed, all of which Kate said Madeleine would not be able to manage.

All very convieniently left out of his observations.

[crusader]

If MWT, responsible for exposing Jimmy Savile's sick crimes, put more effort into his "investigation" into Madeleine's disappearance, perhaps he could become the ex cop responsible for exposing the McCann's.

[Verdi]

All these fringe benefiters work only with self-interest.

They use big names to big-up their own names. There's been quite a lot of them joining the throng over the years.

I have no time for people who use the name of a missing child to make money or advance their careers.

[sandancer]

" I had a contact via one person removed from the family " 

How far " removed " was this person ? 

A " source close to the family " , a " family friend " ? 

If it was " hot " and they were across a " courtyard " that person was very far " removed " 

Strange term to use . Otherwise MWT waffling as usual , how much of the PJ Files has he really read ?

[Verdi]

Williams-Thomas has proved to be a fraud.

Like so many others, what he doesn't know he invents.

All these cling-ons are the same;  they totally disregard the documented Portuguese police investigation in favour of their own fantastical world of make believe. Just like the McCann brethren and their propagandists in chief - the press and media.

Nincompoops!

It maketh me

[crusader]

I wish someone would challenge him at one of his talk events.

[Verdi]

Watch, listen and then ....

[Verdi]

How two BBC journalists risked their jobs to reveal the truth about Jimmy Savile

Listening to the women who alleged abuse, and fighting to get their stories heard, helped change the treatment of victims by the media and the justice system

by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore

On Saturday 29 October 2011, the day the entertainer Jimmy Savile died aged 84, a couple of comments were posted on the Duncroft School page of the networking site Friends Reunited. Duncroft was designated as an “approved school” by the Home Office, and offered residential care for “intelligent but emotionally disturbed girls”. “He died today, RIP no RIH yes rot in hell,” read one message. “Perhaps some closure for the childhoods that were ruined by this animal.” Over the next few days a handful more messages appeared: “You child molester – you were no better than all the other pervs who have been banged up … only your celebrity status saved you.” Someone else wrote how she would never recover from what “JS” did to her.

Across the news bulletins and weekend front pages, Savile was being given a sendoff fitting for someone who had achieved national treasure status. As BBC Radio 1 DJ, and co-presenter of the BBC’s flagship music programme Top of the Pops, Savile became a personality in the pop music scene in the 60s and 70s; his oddness and mannerisms enhanced his celebrity. As the host of the long-running Saturday evening TV show Jim’ll Fix It, he played godfather, granting the wishes to children who wrote in. On the Monday after his death, during the news editors’ 9.15 morning meeting at BBC headquarters in west London, those present were asked to take coverage of Savile’s funeral seriously. The concern was that the news editors might sneer at Savile; they were reminded that, to much of the audience, Savile was a northern hero. He had started out working in the mines, going on to earn a knighthood and befriend royalty through his television shows and charity work.

Meanwhile, George Entwistle, the BBC’s head of television, was trying to work out how BBC light entertainment would mark the death of one of its biggest stars. Entwistle was informed that there was no obituary ready to run on Savile – unusual for someone who had made such a contribution to British public life. The decision had been made by successive controllers, a colleague told him by email. Savile had a “dark side”, which meant it was “impossible to make an honest film to be shown so close to death”, his colleague said.

Entwistle emailed his team: the best way forward was to avoid making anything new about Savile. Someone suggested making a Fix It Christmas special hosted by a new BBC star. All agreed. Problem solved. It’d be “a real Christmas treat”, said the BBC1 controller in an email.

Rumours about Savile being a sexual predator and a paedophile had persisted for decades. In his trademark brightly coloured shell suits, scant shorts and string vests, Savile had performed his perversions almost as much as he’d hidden them. His manner almost dared people to challenge him. Because of the UK’s punitive libel laws, no one ever had. On the Monday morning after Savile’s death, in the Newsnight office at BBC Television Centre, social affairs correspondent Liz MacKean and producer Meirion Jones began to investigate Savile’s history.

Jones had a personal connection to the story: his aunt ran the Duncroft School. Over three years in the early 1970s, when he was in his mid-teens, Jones visited Duncroft on weekends with his parents and his sister. They would often see Savile’s white Rolls-Royce parked outside. His parents were concerned about Savile taking the girls off site. Jones met Savile there a few times, always finding it curious how he seemed to speak in catchphrases that created what Jones described as “a screen between him and people around him”.

In 1988, Jones became a journalist at the BBC. It soon became one of the stories he wanted to get a purchase on. Once social media arrived, he would search sites for references to Savile and Duncroft. In 2010, he found a memoir published online by a former Duncroft pupil, detailing abuse by a celebrity “JS”. Jones had spoken to MacKean at different times about pursuing the story, but they were at a disadvantage legally. Savile was part of the establishment, a leading charity fundraiser, and some of the Duncroft girls were offenders. Some had been abused from a young age, and had run away from care homes. No one would believe them against him. “Any witness would be destroyed in court so we’d never get it past the lawyers,” Jones told me. “It’s exactly why he targeted places like that.”

MacKean, then 46, from Hampshire, had two children and worked at Newsnight part-time. As a journalist she was drawn to people on the margins – people who’d been wronged and couldn’t get justice. “She was a lucky person, highly attuned to the unlucky and the unfair,” MacKean’s friend Amelia Bullmore wrote to me.

Within a few weeks of Savile’s death, MacKean had collected on-the-record testimony from 10 women who had been at Duncroft. Seven had been abused and three had witnessed abuse by Savile. It had been difficult to convince them to go public. Some told her they worried they would be seen as complicit; they were sure they wouldn’t be believed. Some feared a backlash, that people would claim they were out for something: compensation, notoriety. MacKean, a BBC journalist of 20 years’ standing, assured the women that they’d have the weight of Newsnight behind them, and the support of the BBC. But a few days before the transmission date, the Newsnight editor, Peter Rippon, told MacKean and Jones that the piece couldn’t be broadcast.

He said they needed to focus on some kind of institutional failure. What about the police investigation that had been halted? MacKean told Rippon that the women’s stories corroborated one another – they didn’t need any other elements. It all stacked up. And on top of this, they had found institutional failure by the BBC. Some of the abuse had taken place on BBC premises, in dressing rooms in Television Centre, the very building in which they were standing.

MacKean couldn’t know the extent to which she’d have to take on the BBC in order to make sure that the former Duncroft pupils were taken seriously. Nor could she know that she and Jones would be risking their careers. But in refusing to drop the story, they helped to change the culture about the way past sexual abuse is talked about, and survivors listened to, in the UK.

The BBC is now making a mini-series about Savile. One of the few details it has announced is that Steve Coogan will play Savile. Some viewers are uneasy about the BBC putting Savile back in the limelight, and have expressed concern about how people still living with the impact of his abuse will feel about it. But the BBC feels the time is right for a reckoning, and says the drama “will examine the impact his appalling crimes had on [Savile’s] victims and the powerlessness many felt when they tried to raise the alarm”.

Savile’s funeral was broadcast live on BBC News on 9 November 2011. The pavements around Leeds Cathedral were thick with mourners as his gold coffin was borne past. MacKean told the documentary maker Olly Lambert in 2014 that she watched this and thought: “The difference between that and the sort of things that people now felt able to start telling us – a gulf like that – that’s a story.”

Working with Jones and MacKean, BBC trainee Hannah Livingston tracked down about 60 former Duncroft pupils. Most immediately assumed the call would be about Savile. Those willing to talk were passed on to MacKean. Over long calls, MacKean began to understand how Savile masterminded the abuse. He would offer the girls cigarettes and trips to Television Centre in his Rolls-Royce. In return, they’d have to give him oral sex in a layby.

Among the Newsnight editorial team there were some squeamish discussions about the Savile story. Jeremy Paxman, Newsnight’s lead presenter for 25 years, whose rigorous, curmudgeonly questioning style defined the programme, told me: “I think there were an awful lot of people who felt that it was at the tabloidy end of things.” One member of the team wanted nothing to do with it on grounds of “taste”. Some thought it was too close to Savile’s death, and sensationalist. “That was one of the arguments deployed at the time,” one former senior Newsnight journalist told me. “Newsnight was meant to be serious, high-minded journalism about politics, economics, foreign affairs and culture, and this isn’t what it should be doing.” Rippon was initially enthusiastic about MacKean and Jones pursuing the Savile story, but, as MacKean told Jones in an email after a meeting she had with Rippon and a member of his editorial team, they were “[of] course concerned about the credibility of the women”.
Jimmy Savile in 1981.

MacKean told Lambert in 2014, during a long interview that he recorded but never broadcast: “The women we spoke to were middle-aged. The fact that they’d been in a school like Duncroft showed that their lives were on a difficult course. Perhaps they weren’t the most appealing interviewees for television. There is, within the mainstream establishment, a dislike of those sorts of people, an official indifference, or they just find them difficult to deal with. I think that’s why the BBC then found it so hard to admit that we were investigating Jimmy Savile, because there was a real embarrassment at admitting that the BBC, like all these other official institutions, had just shrugged its shoulders and turned away from people rather than listened.” The BBC said in a statement: “Savile’s actions were profoundly wrong and we are sorry for the pain caused to his survivors … Today’s BBC is a very different place, where complaints about any form of harassment are considered with the utmost seriousness.”

When MacKean arrived at Newsnight in 2000 after being a presenter on BBC Breakfast News, Jones had been producing investigations for the programme for five years. He noticed that she would get stories from people who didn’t usually talk to journalists. “You could absolutely 100% trust her, and the women [from Duncroft] knew they could trust her too,” he said. “And she was totally unafraid.”

While MacKean was working on Savile, I was working as a freelancer, producing another investigation with her at Newsnight. When I first met her in the office that summer, she looked at my hands, saw they were covered in scratches and asked me if I had a kitten at home. Nobody asked questions like that on first meetings at Newsnight: not personal, not domestic, not about kittens. Newsnight was a tough environment, but MacKean was disarmingly herself. She drew people out. Over the next year I would watch MacKean fight for the Savile story, see how her work went unrecognised, how she was ignored and sidelined at the BBC, and how profoundly that affected her.

“She’d always struck me as a very ordinary journalist,” a former senior news executive told me. “She wasn’t ambitious or sharp-elbowed. She didn’t fill the screen.” I put it to him that MacKean’s talents for listening to sources were one of the qualities that made her extraordinary. He considered this for a moment and said: “Listening wasn’t a quality we gave much credit to back then. It should have been.”

In 2010, Jones and MacKean won the Daniel Pearl award for investigative journalism for their report on Trafigura’s toxic waste dumping in Ivory Coast, co-authored with the Guardian. Paxman told me: “Meirion’s like a dog with a bone. I always took it as read that if Meirion said something was true, it was true. Even though there might be very expensive lawyers for the other side, I always believed him. And he worked with Liz. They were not what you’d call ‘clubbable’. I admired Liz very much. She was a difficult woman, but the best journalists very often are difficult.” Because Jones and MacKean had been given freedom to get on with their work in the past, when their editor questioned whether they had done enough on the Savile story, it was a shock.

On Monday 14 November 2011, cameraman Simon Monk picked up MacKean, Jones and Livingston from a train station in the south of England and drove them to the home of the only one of Savile’s victims they had spoken to who had agreed to record an interview on camera. Monk didn’t know what the story was that he had been booked for. “I’ve often thought about that interview,” he told me. “It stayed with me, you know, just little moments of it. I realised – I’m listening to something that happened to this lady, that I was privy to something that had maybe never been shared before.”

In the car on the way back, the team were quiet at first. Slowly they prompted one another’s responses. They had all believed her. “It was subdued,” Monk said, “and I’m thinking: we’re at the beginning of something. The lid is being prised open on this. I’ve worked there for a long time and seen how people have been dealt with, especially women in the Beeb.” Monk turned on the car radio, and by coincidence the BBC Christmas schedule was being announced – including the Savile tributes. “They’ll have to cancel those now,” someone said.

The team were working to corroborate as many fine details as possible from their collection of quotes by the former Duncroft pupils. Rippon asked Jones and MacKean to confirm claims that the police had investigated Savile. On 25 November, Jones received confirmation that Surrey police had investigated Savile in 2007, and that a file had been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Rippon gave the story a transmission date of 7 December. He wrote it on the Newsnight whiteboard, which meant it was certain to be going on air.

Jones sent a draft version of MacKean’s script to the BBC Impact team, which makes sure important stories are headlined on news bulletins across the network. The Impact department expected a lot of interest, and asked if MacKean could be available for live interviews across all BBC outlets on the day of transmission. Two minutes later, Rippon sent an email to his line manager: “The women are credible and have no motive for speaking to us other than they want the truth to be known … We also think that Sky are chasing the story too so we don’t want to sit on it.”

Rippon received a reply from his manager Stephen Mitchell, the deputy head of news, saying he’d call later. At the 2012 inquiry into the BBC’s conduct over the Newsnight investigation, both said they could not remember whether any subsequent conversation took place. Nick Pollard, chair of the inquiry, wrote in his review: “The inability of both … Mr Rippon and Mr Mitchell to provide any recollection of whether they did or did not speak and, if so, what was said, was frustrating.” (When I approached Stephen Mitchell for comment about this, he said: “I would refer you to the two inquiries carried out into these events and the published outcomes of these, as I recall the reports were clear on how the item was handled.”)

But the next day, Rippon had pulled back. He emailed MacKean and Jones asking them to confirm if it was true that the CPS had dropped the case because of Savile’s old age, as some of the Duncroft women had been told. “That makes it a much better story,” he wrote to Jones and MacKean. “Our sources so far are just the women.”

Pollard quoted Rippon’s testimony in his review: “The extent to which we had to rely on the testimony from [the on camera interviewee] was stark. She was the only victim in vision we had and would be the face of our allegations and I remained concerned about how well her testimony would stand up to the scrutiny it would get.”

MacKean, however, was enraged by that phrase “just the women”. She walked into Rippon’s glass-walled office, leaving the door open. “Liz would have been grandstanding,” Jones recalled, “making sure the whole office could hear. He’d have been looking at his toes. Liz, with big arm gestures, was saying: ‘How dare you talk about “just the women”?’ … I don’t remember whether I’d ever seen her bawling out the editor before.”

MacKean asked Rippon to watch their interview with Savile’s victim, but he refused. Pollard wrote in his review: “Mr Rippon told me: ‘I don’t think seeing the interview … seeing something with an eye … gives you any more help in making a judgment about whether something is true or not … I think the kind of concerns that I had, that I was weighing, would not have been swayed by having sat down and watched the interview.’ I think this is a strange thing for a television news journalist and editor to say. Common sense and experience would surely suggest the opposite.”

Rippon wiped the Savile story from the Newsnight whiteboard and told Jones and Mackean to stop work on it until they heard back from the CPS. They didn’t stop. For them, the police investigation was superfluous. They had the story: Savile had been a paedophile and numerous institutions had facilitated his crimes. Jones hired a white Rolls-Royce and filmed it the next day pulling up outside Duncroft.

MacKean and Jones were beginning to realise that Savile’s abuse had taken place on a bigger scale than they’d thought. “By then, we’d also heard rumours about Broadmoor, and quite serious allegations about Stoke Mandeville [hospital],” MacKean told Lambert. “Meirion thought there could be 100 victims … I said, I don’t know, but certainly dozens. And of course we’d both wildly underestimated it, as it turned out. But there was certainly enough there to think, right, a lot of institutions have questions to answer: clearly the BBC, certainly the NHS, and also the Home Office.”

For the next few days, the atmosphere in the Newsnight office was tense. MacKean and Jones quietly continued working on the story as they waited to hear back from the CPS. On 9 December that email came. The CPS said they had dropped the investigation into Savile because of lack of evidence.

“I knew that was the kill,” Jones said.

“This statement [from the CPS about lack of evidence] specifically denied the allegation that the investigation was dropped because of his age,” Rippon later wrote in the Editors’ blog on the BBC website. “I felt it was significant the guidance was included and we had not established any institutional failure and I judged it weakened the story from a Newsnight perspective. I took the decision not to publish.”

The Pollard review recorded that Rippon told them that “the decision to drop the Savile story was his, and his alone”. Pollard found that there was no inappropriate pressure or interference from BBC senior management with the editorial decision not to broadcast the Savile Newsnight programme. MacKean had to ring the women she’d convinced to trust her and tell them the story wasn’t going on air.

“It was crushing and disappointing, but I didn’t accept it,” MacKean told Lambert. “Now she was on a mission to get this story out and to get the truth told, she really was,” MacKean’s wife, Donna Rowlands, told me. There were still a few weeks before Christmas, and MacKean wanted her sources’ voices to be heard before the tributes could air. She leaked the cancellation of her Newsnight investigation to the press. Reporter Miles Goslett got hold of the story and pitched it to seven Fleet Street editors. All turned it down, also on grounds of taste, and because getting into a tussle with the BBC so close to Christmas would cause problems. Even with Savile dead, the story was too much for the British press at that time of year.

On Boxing Day evening, after the regional news and before the family film Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, 5 million people tuned in to BBC One to watch the actor Shane Richie present the Jim’ll Fix It Christmas special.

In the new year, MacKean and Jones, with more than four decades of service to the BBC between them, gave all their research on Savile to the BBC’s rival, the commercial channel ITV. “Now, obviously that doesn’t make us feel very good as BBC journalists,” MacKean told Lambert. “But given that by then, we really had the feeling that the BBC didn’t want to run this story, the only chance for us to get it out was going to be through someone else.”

n Wednesday 3 October 2012, ITV ran a documentary in their Exposure strand titled The Other Side of Jimmy Savile. Five women, two from Duncroft, spoke about how Savile had sexually assaulted them as underage girls. Not long into the 49-minute programme, the NSPCC helplines began to light up and didn’t stop ringing. And so began a gradual national outpouring of people, mainly women, talking about their own experiences of past sexual abuse, by high-profile figures, or people in their communities, workplaces or families, which many had kept silent about for decades.

The weekend before the Exposure documentary aired, the tabloids had splashed on the Savile allegations. “Sensation as TV legend Jimmy Savile is accused of underage sexual assaults” was the front page of the People. The broadsheets joined in, too, but their focus was specifically on Newsnight’s dropped investigation: “BBC ditched Newsnight investigation into Jimmy Savile,” was the Times’s headline. “BBC denies cover-up over claims Savile targeted underage girls” was the Independent’s.

To tell the Savile story, the BBC had been looking for a case of contemporary institutional failure. By not running it, they had created one. MacKean and Jones were now greeted by cameras and a press mob every time they entered Television Centre. The BBC press office was doing all it could to deflect the story. It put out statements saying that Newsnight had been investigating Surrey police’s Savile investigation, not Savile himself. On 2 October, Peter Rippon published the blog explaining his decision. “Newsnight is not normally interested in celebrity exposé,” he wrote. MacKean was horrified that the former Duncroft pupils, who’d trusted her with painful stories, were being ignored once again by the BBC. And now her and Jones’s work was being publicly undermined. In November, Chris Patten, then chair of the BBC Trust, and George Entwistle, since promoted to director general, were called before a House of Commons select committee to explain what had happened.

Journalists were calling MacKean and Jones, wanting to know their side of the story. Jones ignored the calls at first. MacKean didn’t. MacKean told Lambert: “I remember I had a two-week period of journalists ringing up around the clock, knocking on my door at home, and there was absolutely no one at the BBC I could talk to or get any sort of advice from because we were seen as the enemy within. I remember driving home on Sunday and the phone going, and it was someone from one of the national newspapers to say that a senior member of BBC management had told him that the investigation had been run by a work experience person, and I almost drove off the road.”

The BBC told me that after this year’s investigation into Martin Bashir’s 1995 Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, which identified profound failures in the application and oversight of editorial values, the BBC Board had commissioned the Serota review “to look at how to further strengthen BBC processes and practices”. The remit of the Serota review was to establish whether the BBC had learned from the mistakes of the past, and to consider whether current practice addressed the challenges that had arisen since 1995. It considered the BBC’s oversight of, and accountability for, editorial decision-making processes; the mechanisms in place for staff and others to raise concerns about editorial issues; the effectiveness of the BBC’s whistleblowing procedures; and the culture within the BBC that supported compliance with the BBC’s editorial values and standards. The Serota review was published in late October, and one of its key findings was that many BBC employees “are apprehensive that speaking up could impact negatively on their career”.

Back in 2012, MacKean and Jones wrote to Rippon, Mitchell and Entwistle trying to correct what they felt were inaccuracies in the BBC’s statements. But the same BBC lines kept appearing in the press. “We were feeling huge pressure from the machine basically saying: go along with what we’re saying,” Jones said. “We were under a lot of scrutiny. There was incredible stress on both of us. And then we decided to do something which meant we’d incur the wrath of management, which was to make the [programme for] Panorama.”

MacKean and Jones had convinced Tom Giles, the editor of Panorama, the BBC’s investigative current affairs programme, to make a programme about what had happened to Newsnight’s Savile investigation. They handed over to Panorama all their emails and paperwork. MacKean and Jones were told by Panorama that a senior manager had said that if they gave interviews to Panorama, they’d lose their jobs.

“We stopped worrying about her BBC career,” Rowlands, MacKean’s wife, told me. “And I’m not just saying that. That was going to fall the way it fell. OK, it fell more disappointingly than we’d hoped. But the important thing was that the women were heard – that was her number one. And then number two, that the truth was told about what the BBC had done, and the cover-up.”

The BBC press office was split. Part of it promoted the Panorama programme that MacKean and Jones were speaking on, while the other put out the BBC’s corporate reaction to the programme. “It was a baroque arrangement,” one former senior BBC manager said.

“It felt weird, like we’d gone beyond the looking-glass,” one former senior Newsnight journalist remembered, “and we didn’t quite know what the rules were. It was very tooth and claw. You could see there were desperate people among management.”

The weekend before the Panorama investigation was broadcast, Jones received a call from a journalist with a “tipoff” that someone from the BBC press office had told him that the reason Newsnight hadn’t run the Savile investigation was because Jones was trying to conceal the fact that his aunt had been complicit in Savile’s abuse. Jones received official permission to deny it from senior news editor Peter Horrocks, who had come over from the World Service to take on editorial oversight of the Panorama film to avoid a conflict of interest, as senior BBC news managers were the subjects of its investigation. On 21 October, the Mail on Sunday ran the story, and noted that the “BBC civil war intensified,” as the BBC press office and a BBC journalist gave out information that entirely opposed each other.

“It’s just massive pressure,” Jones told me, “when it feels like all your bosses, the whole press office, were fighting a war against you. I would have collapsed over it if I had been on my own – and they would have got away with their pack of lies. But it felt like Liz and I were covering each other’s backs. And there was never a feeling that Liz would crack. She was rock solid on this.”

On Monday 22 October, the Panorama film, Jimmy Savile: What the BBC Knew, was broadcast on BBC One at 10.35pm. On the programme, MacKean said the BBC had been “misleading” the public. Viewers watched as the BBC seemed to be criticising itself. Meanwhile, MacKean amplified her criticisms of what she saw as the BBC’s deafness to the victims of past sexual abuse. She said: “[The] women collectively deserved to be heard, and weren’t heard, and that was a failure. We’d convinced them to talk to us, we’d believed them, and we let them down.”

Rippon stepped down as the Newsnight editor a few hours before the Panorama film went out. (Pollard would later write in his review that Rippon was already “becoming something of a ‘fall guy’”.) The BBC put out a statement saying that the BBC Newsnight investigation had not started out by looking at Surrey police. It was a small admission, but on that point the record had been corrected.

“We were both pretty smashed up after all that,” Jones told me. He remained on a short-term contract with Panorama while MacKean returned to Newsnight alone. “Overnight my relationship with the BBC changed,” MacKean told Lambert. “All of a sudden I was persona non grata, and people who knew me wouldn’t talk to me. I’d sort of sit down and all the usual chit-chat of an office seemed to just fall away.”

MacKean felt that for many in management, and colleagues who were fearful of management, she was now tainted. “It became a world where people were disappearing – you didn’t know if all your bosses were going to be sacked,” a former senior Newsnight journalist told me. He talked about the awkwardness of bumping into MacKean and Jones at the time: “You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know what they wanted, or how far they wanted to take this.”

MacKean was hurt. “She wasn’t a rebel. So to suddenly be so outside the tent was quite hard,” Rowlands explained. ‘She was so determined that all the truth would come out and all the people who’d lied would be held accountable. But it suddenly put her in a position that wasn’t comfortable for her. Because really, I mean, it sounds corny, but she was a team player. You know she’d always liked the collegiate nature of the BBC.” Her former colleague Jackie Long told me: “It was the one period in the time I knew her that she sounded at all fragile. That inner confidence was rocked.”

Dee Coles was abused by Savile in his campervan when she was 14, while on holiday with her mother in Jersey. When she saw that the Exposure documentary was coming out, she noticed scepticism in some of the papers, and worried that the women coming forward wouldn’t be believed. She wrote to the independent news production company, ITN, and in early October 2012 spoke about her own abuse by Savile on ITV news.

She felt MacKean and Jones’s intervention on Panorama was crucial for building victims’ confidence if they were going to come forward. “Nobody else was fighting that particular corner.” Coles said she saw interviews with people who had been at the BBC when Savile was alive saying they hadn’t seen anything, or there was nothing they could have done. “And so it became massive that someone with a journalistic background who had nothing to gain and everything to lose said [that Savile abused children]. It underpinned the whole thing going forward, because otherwise it would just be a bunch of women saying ‘me too’ before it was hash-tagged. It was so courageous.”

“A lot of how the BBC behaved was as other institutions behaved,” MacKean told Lambert, “whether the courts, the police and NHS hospitals, even within families, people making the complaints are sidelined. They’re disbelieved. And in that way, the BBC behaved exactly as other institutions did.”

A mental shift was now taking place. In a rushed attempt to catch up, Newsnight tried to do a film about another sexual abuse case involving a wealthy industrialist, based on victim testimony. But after the accuser said he got the wrong person, the BBC issued an apology. On 11 November 2012, Entwistle, the BBC director general, resigned.

The Pollard review was commissioned by the BBC to look into “the management by the BBC of a Newsnight investigation relating to allegations of sexual abuse of children by Jimmy Savile”. Pollard, a journalist at Sky, took the chair on 16 October 2012 and collected testimony from all the BBC players involved. On 18 December 2012, he released his findings.

MacKean and Jones turned up at the door to Pollard’s press conference in Broadcasting House. A press officer stopped them from entering. “We were shocked,” Jones said. “But we couldn’t do anything about it.” MacKean and Jones stood together at a television set in another part of the building and watched the press conference, live on the news, together. Pollard told the room: “The Newsnight investigators had got the story right. They had found clear and compelling evidence that Jimmy Savile was a paedophile. The decision by their editor to drop the original investigation was clearly flawed, though I believe it was done in good faith.”

After being barred from Pollard’s press conference, MacKean and Jones decided to address the members of the media who were waiting on the forecourt outside Broadcasting House. A BBC press officer told them that their statements needed to be approved first by the acting head of BBC News. MacKean turned and said: “I think you’ll find they won’t.” She and Jones walked out through the revolving doors to the microphones and stood in front of the flashing cameras. MacKean said: “I think the decision to drop our story was a breach of our duty to the women who trusted us to reveal that Jimmy Savile was a paedophile … Our editor didn’t watch the interview with our main witness. Nick Pollard did, and found her credible and compelling, as did we … I welcome the recommendation that the BBC should trust its journalists.”

MacKean and Jones were both invited to individual meetings with the then-acting (and now current) director general of the BBC, Tim Davie. Jones said: “We were both half-expecting that he might say: ‘We’ve got new hands on the tiller, it’s all going to change. Congratulations for going after that really important story. And – I’m sorry.’ But we got the opposite of that. It was new face, same suit.”

In a statement, the BBC said: “In response to Pollard’s findings, BBC management dealt with the issues appropriately at the time setting out a number of actions including the replacement of the senior editorial team at Newsnight; the introduction of regular reports from the Director-General to the BBC Management board about the highest risk programmes and investigations across the BBC.”

Newsnight moved into Broadcasting House in central London in mid-October 2012. The old Television Centre in White City had been sold, and would later be rebuilt into a complex of high-end apartments and restaurants. MacKean was asked to stay behind, sitting in Paxman’s old chair, ready to present the programme should the satellite link fail in the new studio. MacKean called it the “Miss Havisham” role – she’d done it before when presenters were on location. But as she sat there alone in the empty studio, an understudy, it was her story that made the headlines. The Metropolitan police had launched Operation Yewtree on 9 October to investigate Savile and other establishment figures, and 450 people would come forward to give testimony about being abused by Savile. The NSPCC said that in November and December 2012 it intervened to protect 800 more children than in a similar period in previous years. And since its establishment in 2013, the child sexual abuse review panel has sent 78% of cases referred to them to be reopened by the police or CPS because of flaws in the original investigations.

MacKean and Jones had reframed the Savile story. It could no longer be dismissed as a celebrity sex exposé. Now the victims were at the centre. From that moment on, when women spoke out about past sexual abuse, the media, the police and the courts were prepared to listen.

“I think the scandal really did change things,” a senior journalist told me. “In our world, the idea that you wouldn’t run a story where you interviewed victims is now very unusual. Certainly if you have lots and lots of adult women saying something like that – you would run that story now. Weinstein was done partly by the New Yorker and the New York Times – the most heavyweight outlets in the world now do that kind of story.”

MacKean left the BBC in 2013. She went on to make award-winning documentaries for Channel 4’s Dispatches, but she missed the daily grind of the news and her world at the BBC. In 2017, she and her friend and former Newsnight Northern Ireland producer Michael Hughes were watching the BBC’s general election coverage together. “Liz was sad about it,” Hughes said. She wished she was mucking in, reporting the results with her colleagues on election night. “She always had her head held high, but I think she was sad that the Beeb hadn’t fought harder to keep her.” In August 2017, at the age of 52, MacKean had a stroke and died.

I had seen how MacKean’s sense of justice, courage and incisiveness had set off a chain of events that helped to bring justice, and reduce isolation, shame and repression for countless women across the UK and beyond. When I miss Liz’s friendship, I look online for an account of what she helped to achieve through her work on Savile, but I can never find one. So here it is.

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[Verdi]

Exposure - The Other Side of Jimmy Savile - 3th Oct 2012 - Full Documentary ITV

49:48 minutes

Former detective Mark Williams-Thomas investigates allegations that broadcaster Jimmy Savile, who died last year, sexually abused vulnerable teenage girls at the height of his fame in the 1970s.

In life, Jimmy Savile built a reputation as dream-maker, champion fundraiser, and eccentric spinner of discs. In death, his epitaph may prove to contain darker secrets. This ITV investigation will feature women who allege that, when they were under-age teens, they were sexually assaulted by Savile during the 1970s. Savile's passing means their evidence cannot be subjected to the same robust judicial scrutiny it would have earned while he was alive. So saint or sinner? You, the TV audience, form the jury.

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