re: Operation Yewtree
 

Well, the simple fact that Peel was able to marry a 15 year old shows you that attitudes were different back then. That's not to say no-one objected. If I'm not mistaken is was illegal in some states in the US, so Peel had to be careful crossing state boundaries.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Right. We've got a thread about a former UK national treasure being outed as a rapist and paedophile and you manage to bring Islam into it. Well done! Not... :rolleyes:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Godwins law .What is the equivalent for Islam ...........or Thatcher :D

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Where you there? If you weren't, how do know it happened?

Ian Hislop and Paul Merton probably were there. Also, they have nothing to gain by lying about it, and rather a lot to lose (particularly Ian Hislop who would certainly be giving Private Eye's enemies a serious amount of ammunition if he were found to be lying).

As such, I believe they are not lying.

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Child abuse, paedos, children, underage.
I see the connection. besides we had catholics in the thread and you didn't flinch :confused:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

re: Operation Yewtree
 

So they want to sue the NHS now do the victims

re: Operation Yewtree
 

No problem you are entilteld to your opinion but as I have stated quite a few times I did see and hear as I posted. I did post a link of a YouTube of HIGNFY but it has been taken down for one reason or another. :confused:

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Firstly, religion should not be brought into this thread, as for victims suing the NHS, the answer sadly is yes, its called NHS failed in its duty of care towards patients.

When someone is under the care of the NHS, they have failed in there care of the patient. Also, if there were allegations of Saville doing this, why he was allowed to work in hospitals in the first place.

Years ago when this did happen, people of the establishment didn't want to go down that route and didn't believe what that person had said.

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I see todays revelation is that he molested a 9 year old boy scout. What on earth is going to come out next?

Truly shocking behaviour.

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I fail to see how a fist full of cash will make everything ok.

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BBC announces inquiry heads

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19970059

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I have just watched my recording of today's 'This Morning'. The gentleman who was molested by Savile in 1976 told viewers his harrowing story in the first segment.

It should be available on the ITV Player soon.

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http://news.sky.com/story/999680/boy...ex-abuse-files
This supports my view I am sorry to say

re: Operation Yewtree
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20006049

I wonder where this and to who it will lead?:(

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Doesn't matter who, but does matter they pursue

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Of course it matters..It matters hugely.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

disagree...a crime is a crime...whomever they identify..they need to be prosecuted

If a celebrity...media may wish to know..my view..as long as they are caught and tried..not bothered if a celebrity i heard of, or a person I don't know

re: Operation Yewtree
 

That wasn't what I meant.If they are a people of consequence and power it's even MORE important that they are prosecuted.

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Positions of trust...yes

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The BBC is a large organisation and it's probably worth waiting to see what happens. Either way I don't think the BBC is going to be found to be a front for a child abuse ring, instead it will be a failure of care during the 1970s. We also have prisons and hospitals to investigate.

Hopefully those that were complicit in a cover up will be brought to justice.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Actually I was thinking further afield.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Further afield, left field, right field, inner field and outer field..... any other field that this paedo had contact with. There can, perhaps, be some defence for those who heard rumours and did nothing.

There is no defence for us to not now investigate if there are people out there who colluded with him. We owe it to his victims.

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It's a pity we can't have a 'who is it' thread. I'd tell you who the other 3 were.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

proof or rumour?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

or victim :erm: :(

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I doubt we'll be able to allow that. Any such thread would potentially libelous.

Ian hislop had quite a lot to say last week.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNUBAtC8occ

We do.

The BBC is quite capable of doing wrong. However they are far from the only organisation involved in this. Look at Broadmoor. They gave him keys to the wards! Essentially giving him free access to hundreds of vulnerable people at a time.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

To be fair though, he only had keys to Broadmoor as a result of his celebrity status gained whilst working for the BBC. If the BBC had acted on these rumours decades ago he would most likely not have been let near vulnerable people.

In my opinion all those who kept their mouth shut, including the stiff upper lip BBC organisation are partly responsible for the crimes.

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BBC Newsnight editor steps aside over Jimmy Savile claims

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20024904

Yes one suspects he will be the first of many who will have to resign over all this as one suspects the BBC covered things up to considerable lengths and as someone said this morning the BBC is in its biggest crisis for over 50 years.

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I bet Murdoch is rubbing his hands with glee..:erm:

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We still haven't had evidence of a systematic cover-up yet. This conclusion has been jumped too right away but we still don't have much evidence that people at the BBC knew it happened and chose to cover it up. In fact 'systematic covering up' is a very loaded accusation which you haven't got any evidence for.

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Yeah but you're forgetting they're Guardianistas, so guilty by default.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I'm still surprised Murdoch's hounds never got a whiff considering it was so apparently 'known' about.

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Did anyone else see this?

http://www.itv.com/thismorning/life/...line-robinson/

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That's just it. I can't imagine for a second that any of the Murdoch papers or the Daily Mail (who love to have a go at the Beeb) would have held back if they'd had even a whiff of a story.

While I think the BBC have a lot to answer for (and if, as it seems, Panorama are going after the DG, then it appears they are going in the right direction), I don't think the rot ends at the BBC. I think other organisations (potentially a lot) were also involved.

Think about that. When the BBC allowed Russell Brand to swear at Andrew Sachs, and when Blue Peter was found to have been a little dodgy when awarding prizes, those papers were complaining about the BBC for weeks (in fact, the Russell Brand thing was front page news on the Daily Mail for over a week). Now, there is a chance that staff (or ex staff) at the BBC have been involved in something actually illegal, and we have relatively few stories.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

The suggestion from an MP being interviewed on the World at One today is that a lot of the papers are interested in this going away before people start asking why our famous 'campaigning' British Press didn't do a job on Savile years ago. Nobody here is covered in glory; a lot of people obviously knew about it and for their own reasons decided to sit on it.

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I think it's probably because they are on dodgy ground making accusations at the moment. They don't know who knew and if the BBC had any complaints. As has been mentioned there is probably quite a lot of complicity to go around but, again, we need to make the distinction between rumour and fact. Hearing a rumour doesn't mean you knew it was true. Legally the BBC, 2nd hand accusers, and newspapers would have to be careful labelling someone as a child abuser.

The best they have at the moment is that the BBC story was pulled from Newsnight but the leaked e-mails don't show a cover-up, they show a difference on opinion on if the story was strong enough without an admission from the CPS that they had decided not to act on the allegations because of his age.

More may come out in time. At the moment it's best to reserve judgement until we have some more substantive evidence of a BBC cover-up.

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Agreed!

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I certainly hope that all this speculation about what the BBC did or did not know is not going to detract from the investigation of the abused women

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10:35 on BBC 1 (instead of HIGMNFY) A Panorma special on JS.

---------- Post added at 23:00 ---------- Previous post was at 21:11 ----------

Watching the JS programme, and annoyed nobody had the balls to report it/him.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

They made him then become scared of him and now their going to go down for him. That obviously doesn't apply to all BBC staff.

Best wishes and luck to all the victims.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

What a thoroughly depressing state of affairs. It seems the Newsnight editor suffered the same institutional blindness as so many others at the BBC. Apparently a botched police investigation into Saville would have been a story, but the fact that he was a long-term predatory paedophille wasn't. Utterly bizarre.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I wonder how much of last night's Panorama would have been in the originally planned Newsnight report. Did they have the ex BBC people saying they heard rumours, or saw suspicious behaviour etc, Either way, broadcasting the original report would have brought out all these new witnesses almost a year earlier. It is the ITV programme that has led to the large number of new revelations, which the reporters and researchers could not have uncovered by themselves.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

The original planned Newsnight report had testimony from a number of women Savile abused down the years, some of them apparently on BBC premises, but it did not seemingly have interviews from anyone from the BBC.

One point made in the Panorama documentary last night was that the Newsnight editor was working with a typical BBC mindset that was focused on attacking institutional rather than personal failings. This meant, when the team was unable to dig up evidence of failings on the part of the CPS or the police, the editor went cold on the story. The fact that Savile was a long-term predatory paedophile just didn't strike him as a story. Of course, there was an 'institutional failing' angle there for him - the BBC's abject failure to recognise that one of its employees was using its premises to groom and molest underage girls over many years. Unfortunately, though that angle was there in the original material gathered by his reporters, the Newsnight editor seems to have been blind to the scandal.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I was waiting to see how long it took but it seems the 'lets sue the bbc/nhs campaign is well underway, only problem with that is.. these organisations are funded by taxation in the main, so we're now... suing ourselves?

doesn't seem right somehow, especially as everyone and their uncle will now jump on the compensation bandwagon, be interesting to see how it ends. Perhaps BBC will end up scrapping the licence fee in the end as an indirect result?
Couldn't they stick to suing on Savile's estate only?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Bottom line never put your trust in one news source. BBC is no better than any other news media .It reports what it sees as fitting its agenda & ignores those that don`t. Take Andrew Mitchell - Why was the question of police reports being leaked into the public domain not jumped on. Did not suit there agenda ? Time to scrap the BBC perhaps !!! as they answer to no one really - Please do not offer H of C committees ( Three questions and out brigade- if I recall correctly) Moan over.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

News sources can, as in this case, simply not report something. How would you know? If only one news source actually goes ahead, do you dismiss the story? Just because only one news source reports something, doesn't make the story false.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

A mindset that's seems pervasive amongst journalists and editors. After all we've spent the last week or so focusing on the failure of Newsnight to run the story and less on the decades of alleged abuse itself.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Multiple news sources are the only way forward. From Private Eye & Spectator to Newsweek. Al Jazeera & Russia today to Fox News & the Huffington Post. Read them all. ;) Then think for yourself.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Any other news sources are often simply relaying the original story and not independently researching the same issues. How many of your listed sources would actually be researching something themselves?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I was more thinking about the story not being run at all. O.k more "local" news than anything else - but to show what I mean. The murder /attempted murders in Cardiff. Not reported or at least not seen by family in States, like wise a story about a missing child in the States I have seen nothing about here.Seems to be a April Jones type story ( Not that, again they had heard about that). My point being if you only watch the news on one channel or read one newspaper/magazine.Then many stories will pass you by. So easy to bury a story for a lot of people. I sometime wonder what has happened but as it "is not in the people interest " it gets the drop the dead donkey treatment :confused:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

An email is now doing the rounds in which Peter Rippon, the "stood aside" editor of Newsnight, is described as saying Savile's offences were not that serious, happened a long time ago and were perpetrated against girls who were not too young.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...ked-email.html

This description of his alleged attitude towards the story comes from Liz Mackean, the reporter who did the interviews for the exposé that was ultimately canned by Newsnight, in emails sent to colleagues at the time ... Emails BBC lawyers have recently tried to prevent the publication of.

If this is an accurate description of Rippon's attitude, then it adds weight to the BBC's insistence that he was not being leaned on from above by bosses who didn't want their Christmas tribute to Savile to be ruined. However, it also would serve to bracket him with the very many of his colleagues, past and present, who created and perpetuated a culture which allowed the routine exploitation of underage girls by perverts on BBC premises, which frankly is a heck of a lot more worrying.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

What evidence (other than the fact that Savile was able to operate seemingly undetected), is there that there are very many of his colleagues (past and present) that share this attitude?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Ouch!

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I'm thinking along the lines of passive, permissive attitudes rather than "yeah, paedophilia!" attitudes really.

What struck me during the Panorama report last night was how many people knew, or suspected, what was going on, or treated it as a sort of 'common knowledge'. It fits with much of what has been said about "groupie culture" over the past couple of weeks - essentially, that the idea that underage teens being felt up or shagged by celebrities a decade or more older than them, in their dressing rooms was perhaps a bit racy but not particularly serious.

It seems to me that a lot of people cared too little and allowed the outrageous to become mere background noise.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I think that if we are going to accept that Savile did what he is being accused of we must also accept that he did not act alone and Savile would need that kind of attitude to be prevalent to be successful in his attempts to get at young girls.I would also say that the attitude is still prevalent in state run institutions as shown in the recent sex abuse case in Rochdale where at least one of the victims who was in care complained only to be ignored

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I can see where you're coming from, but I'm also wondering how much of that should be seen in the context of the time. I'm not trying to condone what happened in any way, but I'm not convinced (as yet) that things were particularly bad at the BBC compared to other organisations. The reality is that Savile abused children in several organisations not just the BBC. Let's also not forget the abuse in the Catholic Church, and recently the US boy scouts. Then there's John Peel who legally married a 15 year old in the 60s.

Once again, I'm not condoning anything, but I think we should also be careful to exclusively chastise the BBC. I think that the fact this was allowed to happen was at least partly an indication of wider society at the time, and we shouldn't lose track of that.

---------- Post added at 20:29 ---------- Previous post was at 20:23 ----------

I don't accept that this attitude would be encountered more frequently in 'state run' institutions.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Quite right - and by focusing on the BBC I don't mean to minimise any of the other awful things that were going on. I'm appalled and sickened at Haut le Garenne's re-emergence into the limelight, for example, and the implication that it was operating as some sort of paedo pick'n'mix operation. It just so happens that the BBC is the institution under the spotlight this week.

However, whatever may be the case about the acceptability of "groupie culture" (or "gropie culture" as Janet Street Porter dubbed it) in the 1970s, I find it troubling that Peter Rippon appeared to be exhibiting those same attitudes as recently as last December.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Absolutely, and it's even more worrying that he saw fit to express that attitude in writing. But I'm not sure if very many of his present colleagues share the attitude. I've not seen a lot of evidence of that (yet).

re: Operation Yewtree
 

perhaps institutions would be a better word ,i accept that the institutions or organisations don't necessarily have to be state run ,it just so happens that the modern example i gave is state run or state controlled

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Just to be clear on this - the email doing the rounds this afternoon is not written by him, it's written by one of his reporters, and describes his alleged attitude. None of the media reporting on this has had a moment's hesitation in doing so, which means they're all confident enough that it's accurate. But nevertheless, we do not have a first-hand quote from Rippon's mouth, pen or keyboard on this issue (not yet, anyway).

re: Operation Yewtree
 

or they are determined not to miss the boat on claiming some scalps as they did over the whole Savile affair even if it means printing some unsubstantiated claims .Which means that any name mentioned will be immediately linked as a peodo or a colluder

re: Operation Yewtree
 

That Savile did a hell of a lot of good work for charity is without question. That he did a hell of a lot of immoral and even illegal things in the process now looks pretty much without question too. Like him or loathe him, I can see that an awful lot of people saw him as an inspiration and would never have wanted to think the worst of him or believe he could have been a paedophile and abuser. Maybe that accounts in part for why he was able to get away with so much. What went on at the BBC will no doubt become clearer in the not too distant future and I dare say there will be people who'll be facing some very tough questioning and harsh realities. As well as those directly complicit in any abuse, there'll probably be those who had some suspicions but turned a blind eye and those who had first hand experience of Savile's dubious activities but chose not to make it public for one reason or another.

When I was in secondary school in the 70's there were all sorts of rumours about at least 2 male staff and their unhealthy interests in young boys and girls. It was 'common knowledge' but nothing was done and even the staff (who must have known more than the pupils) laughed it off. In one case we found out years later that the rumours were true and the teacher concerned had a string of convictions to testifty to the fact. In the other case the guy conerned died before anything was proved.

It doesn't sound that long ago but things were very different in those days and if Savile learned his trade and honed his skills of deception to total perfection during those years it wouldn't surprise me at all. There are lots of things we now consider wrong and immoral that weren't treated quite so seriously not that long ago. This is one such area I believe and expecting the BBC as it was then to have been entirely free of abuse, harrassment etc. is living in cloud cuckoo land. Sections of the press are of course having a field day at the prospect of the BBC's demise but I wonder what their newsrooms, cafeterias and office parties were like in those days?

The additional sadness here is that Savile was able to conceal his abuse to the day he died but I don't that is just because he may have had powerful friends who helped him hide or even carry out some of the abuse. I think he simply exploited, to the full, a glowing reputation for charitable work coupled with a reputation for an eccentric disposition.

I'd hate to think that, from now on, genuinely good, kind and decent people who work within and raise money for the charity sector are put off from so doing due to increased suspicion surrounding their motives. That truly would make Savile's legacy all the worse.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I've been told by someone in broadcasting that in the next few days a massive dollop of brown stuff will hit the fan as other big names will be brought in to this. Certain prominent bloggers have been ordered to take information offline immediately. Very dodgy legal ground.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I doubt we will ever get the whole truth.

The statement by the DG of the BBC, that he didn't ask about what the investigation was about, seems implausable. At the very least, he should lose his job. Not sure he is fit to run the BBC, if he doesn't even have the capacity to ask the "right" questions.

They were commissioning tribute programmes, and he never ever thought to ask what the inquiry was about? Bah

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Nothing's really changed much in all these years then

Seems the vast majority of people just don't want to get involved, or feel it's none of their business.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

He wasn't Director General at the time of the Newsnight airing. He was in charge of programming, or entertainment programming, at the time as is alleged to have been told from the News Director that the investigation may impact upon his plays to air tribute shows. There isn't any evidence that he then tried to influence the investigation at all.

This whole thing has become far too focused on the BBC alone. We're talking all the time about the decision to drop a Newsnight investigation and little about the fact that Saville abused several girls. The entire story has been hijacked for the purposes of pushing against the BBC.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I don't think the BBC bloodletting is a bad thing. We've gone through the search for evidence of a cover up - there isn't any - and on to Peter Rippon's reasons for spiking the report, which seem to me to be a reflection of the very attitudes that allowed Saville's activities to carry on in BBC premises over so many years.

The other institutions where Savile abused girls will all have questions to answer but the BBC is a national institution which finds its way into every home in the country and its activities are directly paid for by all of us.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

watching this ,it seems that Entwistle is out of his depth as DG of the beeb ,he looked very uncomfortable in front of that committee

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I don't mind the BBC being investigated. I hope additional abusers as well as any who conspired to let it happen face criminal proceedings. That's what should happen and hopefully is going to happen. I don't resent an investigation into why the Newsnight investigation is dropped either.

I do think there is too much focus on the News investigation presumably because it's one of the few aspects that has taken place in recent times with those responsible still at the BBC. However it's a relatively minor aspect of the entire story. Newsnight's failure to run the investigation didn't result in the abuse of child or contribute to Savile getting away with it.

There may well be people guilty of abuse or covering up that abuse who worked at the BBC or other organisations during the time these crimes took place. This seems to interest the press less because it's unlikely to bring down anyone currently high up in their respective organisations. Why did Saville have such access to children at BBC studios? Was this common? Why did he have access to patients in Broadmoor? Was he unsupervised? Same with Leeds Hospital?

It just seems to me that the press isn't focused on the scandal of child abuse but more on the question of BBC News' impartiality which is of course very important but not the only, or most serious, aspect of this story.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I feel the Times cartoon in yesterdays paper sums the present situation up.:(

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Also, the BBC made him into the star he was. I don't think he would have had the access he had to the other institutions without the BBC.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

It's a good job none of these BBC grandees called anyone a pleb or they'd be in real trouble. :rolleyes:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Indeed ,when he was in charge of programming he was told that the newsnight investigation may mean he would have to change the Christmas schedule regarding the planned Savile tribute, he merely said "keep me updated" not "how serious is this" .Christmas scheduling is probably the most important time for any program maker and scheduler so i think a few more pertinant questions should have been asked .

---------- Post added at 12:25 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

I am aware that you have a reputation for making controversial statements but the above is just plain daft and insulting

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Jimmy Savile: Prosecutors to re-examine abuse allegations

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20068621

re: Operation Yewtree
 

:clap::clap:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

:clap:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Tom Watson has just alleged suggestions of a paedophile ring connected to a Number 10 during a former Prime Minsters term....:erm: Has he gone mad?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

presumably that would be a conservative government ? :erm:

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Apparently he might be referring to this:

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/...cle1153409.ece

re: Operation Yewtree
 

He clearly feels he's on a roll. How long before he metamorphoses into Alan Fry I wonder?... :D

As for Edwina, did she report any of this abuse? If not, why not?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

she probably just realised he's dead and can't be sued

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Ken Clarke has threatened legal action over this.

http://www.maxfarquar.com/2012/10/be...enneth-clarke/

re: Operation Yewtree
 

explain:

a) why it's daft.

b) why it's insulting.

It now seems to be the concensus that Saville was a sex offender.

OK case proven.

Now what?

As far as I'm aware the Director General of the BBC didn't abuse anybody, Or is it now that saville is dead and can't be lynched by a baying mob, we are going to exact out our frustration at not being able to hang saville by lynching the BBC DG, no doubt the baying mob will ask for his head, or at the very least his resignation and his career.

There is no justice to be had for savilles victims by publicly stoning the BBC DG.

There are many in this case that should hang their head, there are many that knew what saville was, yet we focus on the nearest scapegoat on which we can vent our spleen.

He's dead. retrospective justice by proxy does nothing to help any of the victims.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Finding out why he was allowed to get away with it for so long and if others were involved might help them a lot. Especially if others are still alive, potentially still abusing victims and could be brought to justice.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

It's daft because in one sweeping statement you have removed any obligation of the BBC ,stoke mandeville etc of any responsibility for ignoring the rumors and basically giving Savile the opportunity to continue his sordid behavior by not investigating him and listening to patients and guests .So yes very daft ,i will even go as far as to say ignorant of the wider implications so there should be no "moving on"

By telling everyone to "move on" you are saying that nothing can be done for the victims .Well yes there is, plenty.The victims can be heard and more importantly believed for the first time in their lives .Other people who are living and still working with children may be outed ,attitudes towards troubled kids may change and for all we know given the attitude that seems to be prevalent in organisations such as the BBC this sort of abuse may still be happening which would explain why people who are high up are stumbling over questions they should really have the answer to ,so again there should be no "moving on".

Well up to now at best he has shown gross incompetence and his grasp of the importance of the problem has been dire ,at worst he has used his position as (at the time) program planning director to protect the BBC from criticism and possible criminal proceedings

The victims have every right to be heard and believed ,they also have every right to see people who turned their backs to protect the likes of Savile and Glitter face justice or at least public humiliation

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Well put. In the past I have wondered about things you post but this is well said

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Again there is no proof of that.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

Not only is there a total lack of evidence for this, what we have seen and heard over the past several days suggests if anything, the opposite. George Entwistle behaved as one who really did not want to know; possibly because he wanted to avoid knowing anything that would oblige him to change his schedules, possibly because as a senior BBC manager he didn't want to be seen to be interfering in an editorial process.

I'm curious though - when you say that the BBC's problems "seem to have been confounded by trying to cover things up," exactly what is it that makes it seem that way to you?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

There is no proof for any of the allegations even from the alleged victims.There does however seem to be a general acceptance that there was some abuse even though there is no proof other than a lot of "he said, she said" ,so if we are going to accept that as evidence or proof then it must be accepted that others including the DG aided directly or passively by showing astounding ignorance ,even if it can't be proven by emails or recordings

re: Operation Yewtree
 

No. First of all no one with any knowledge is offering first-hand accusations of covering things up. Whereas we have several people, most not connected to each other, saying Savile abused them. We've already been though the issue of victim's testimony counting as evidence - it does.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

and i've accepted that ,so if we accept that and count that as credible evidence then other accusations such as those levelled at the BBC in general must be true because otherwise the former could not have happened, the only question in my eyes is how much the high up in the BBC turned a blind eye ,and it appears to be a lot
.I agree with Chris in that the DG did not deliberately cover up evidence but colluded by not bothering to follow up on the initial investigation by newsnight,or failing by gross incompetence to realise what was being uncovered so yes he must be guilty and must be hung out to dry

re: Operation Yewtree
 

It seems that a lot of people share the view of Peter Rippon, in that sex with post pubescent girls is more acceptable than pubescent girls.

As well as paedophilia and incest, i've just been reading that Savile has now been accused of being a necrophile. Just where will this end?

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/...d-necrophilia/

re: Operation Yewtree
 

It's not entirely surprising though, is it. While the State decrees that sex under the age of 16 is illegal, the State on the other hand is quite willing to hand out contraception, up to and including the morning after pill, to underage girls, not always with the knowledge of the child's parents.

The notion that underage, teenage sex is tolerated, if not technically approved of, has become embedded in our society, and all we have left is a messy, ill-defined debate over exactly when it should be treated as a crime and when it should simply be covered up with a quick, secret visit to Boots.

Until we resolve that central contradiction in public morals, there will be very many people up and down the country watching this story unfold on their TVs and in the newspapers, quietly thinking what Rippon is supposed to have said aloud.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

The accusations don't have the same merit. A load of people claiming first-hand abuse with creditability is the not the same as people saying 'I think he did it'. How could the former not have happened if Newsnight had run the story? We're talking about the Newsnight investigation being pulled?

re: Operation Yewtree
 

i didn't say he was DG then. But he was in charge of tribute programming, and should have at least asked the question.

And the BBC is in focus, because they should have done more, as a public company. But chose to ignore. Hence the focus on them, but not to exclusion of others, hence the other stories coming out.

I am all "henced" out now :)

---------- Post added at 15:24 ---------- Previous post was at 15:21 ----------

I suspect that inquiry will be a bit of a dead end.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

I don't there is a contradiction there. The sex is assumed to be between two consenting teenagers and the contraception is available because we accept it's going to happen. The issue here isn't sex under the age of 16 but adults having sex with people under 16 which is exploitive and abusive.

I guess damage can still be done if both people are under 16 but the relationship wouldn't have the same exploitive dynamic if both parties are the same age.

---------- Post added at 15:31 ---------- Previous post was at 15:27 ----------

He could have asked more questions but it's not really an issue that he didn't. The News Programming wasn't his department and he had no control over their output. He didn't have a decision to make other than to pull the tributes if the Newsnight documentary went ahead.

re: Operation Yewtree
 

What i'm saying (probably not very well) is that you could not have one without the other and since we accept that one did happen then the other must have.
Pulling the newsnight investigation may have been a last ditch attempt to protect the BBC or people within it's ranks who new all along that the accusations of abuse where true ,or it could have been just a bad decision by someone who couldn't be arsed to do his job ,either way they don't deserve to be in a job tomorrow

re: Operation Yewtree
 

If you're suggesting that sex between an 18-year-old (adult) and a 15-year-old (child) is routinely treated as criminal, then I politely suggest you're a bit batty. ;)

Actually, I know you're not trying to draw a hard and fast line, but that's precisely the problem, isn't it? Where is the line?

Under-age teens are emotionally vulnerable and, for the girl, also physically undeveloped such that pregnancy carries heightened risks. That's why we have an age limit set by law. "We accept it's going to happen" is a serious, serious problem because it means the risks that led to the law are being over-ruled by the unquestionable rightness of post-1960s permissiveness.

When the law is thus undermined, it is not surprising that the arbitrary line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" underage sex is a blurred and shaky one.