There is no doubt that police forces made mistakes in relation to sharing and keeping information relating to Savile so no single clear picture of his offending could be made. As Savile’s home police force, West Yorkshire Police (WYP) would have been the obvious place to collect all such information, but investigation has shown that much of the available information during Savile’s lifetime was never shared with WYP and when it was WYP, did not connect the events to recognise a potential pattern of offending. We must do everything we can to understand why that was, to ensure it does not happen again.
So says West Yorkshire Assistant Chief Constable Ingrid Lee in a foreword to a force report into Savile. Read it in full at – http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/sites/default/files/files/reports/savilereportfinalwyp.pdf
ACC Lee wrote: “It is clear that many people felt unable to report these dreadful crimes to West Yorkshire Police or to one of the many agencies specially trained to independently receive such complaints. It is also clear that Savile’s celebrity status and victims’ fear of not being believed because of his standing within the community as a high profile and successful individual, was a barrier to reporting. WYP is committed to fully understanding this, removing such barriers and continuing to learn wider lessons from the experience.”
The report was commissioned by Assistant Chief Constable Ingrid Lee, and authored by Detective Chief Superintendent David Knopwood. The report said: “It is clear that that the victims of Savile’s crimes did not have the confidence to come forward and report offences to WYP during his lifetime.”
The report describes the “Friday Morning Club” (FMC) – ‘the name attributed to occasions when Savile met at his home address in Leeds with a regular group of people, including police officers’. Serving and retired police officers regularly visited Savile at his home in Roundhay.
The report goes through Jimmy Savile’s relations with police. For instance, ‘due to the location of Savile’s home in Roundhay Park and the elevated view from the balcony across the grounds, Savile offered WYP the opportunity to use it when policing major events in the park. An example of this was the Robbie Williams concert in 2006 which was attended by approximately 90,000 people. This offer was not taken up by the police.’
The report sums up: “Savile’s’ celebrity status spanned many decades and he was seen by the public as a man who ‘did good’. He was able to manage his public persona in such a way that he deceived most people he met. He was a manipulative man who exploited to the worst possible degree the trust people placed in him. This is little consolation to his victims and WYP accept there are lessons that must be learned and implemented quickly.”
West Yorkshire, the report concludes used his celebrity status to support a number of crime prevention campaigns and appeals – a situation that is common with both public and private organisations. The review team are satisfied that the work undertaken by Savile in support of local and force campaigns and events was entirely appropriate at the time. The review team have concerns regarding the absence of a process to secure Savile’s services for some of these events and also the over reliance on personal friendships.
Of greater concern, the report adds, is that even after the Force received the request from Surrey Police in 2007 to check what records WYP held that related to Savile in relation to their investigation at Duncroft School, WYP continued to use him as part of local crime prevention campaigns. The reason for this was that the information was not shared across departments, there was no recognition of the impact of this information and no checks were made on intelligence systems in securing Savile’s services.
