Jimmy Savile

Jimmy Savile

Sir James Wilson Vincent "Jimmy" Savile, OBE, KCSG (31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English DJ, television presenter, media personality and charity fundraiser. He hosted the BBC television show Jim'll Fix It, was the first and last presenter of the long-running BBC music chart show Top of the Pops, and raised an estimated £40 million for charities. After his death, hundreds of allegations of child sex abuse and rape became public, leading the police to believe that Savile may have been one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders.

Savile was conscripted to work in the coal mines as a Bevin Boy during the Second World War. He began a career playing records in, and later managing, dance halls. His media career started as a disc jockey at Radio Luxembourg in 1958 and on Tyne Tees Television in 1960, and he developed a reputation for eccentricity and his flamboyant character. At the BBC, he presented the first edition of Top of the Pops in 1964 and broadcast on BBC Radio 1 from 1968. Between 1975 and 1994 he presented Jim'll Fix It, a popular television programme in which he arranged for the wishes of viewers, mainly children, to come true. During his lifetime, he was noted for a fundraising and supporting charities and hospitals, in particular Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, Leeds General Infirmary and Broadmoor Hospital in Berkshire. He was described in The Guardian as a "prodigious philanthropist" and was honoured for his charity work. He was awarded the OBE in 1971 and was knighted in 1990.

In October 2012, almost a year after his death, an ITV documentary examining claims of sexual abuse against Savile led to broad media coverage and a substantial and rapidly growing body of witness statements and sexual abuse claims, including accusations against public bodies for covering up or failure of duty. Scotland Yard launched a criminal investigation into allegations of child sex abuse by Savile over six decades, describing him as a "predatory sex offender", and later stated that they were pursuing over 400 lines of inquiry based on the testimony of 300 potential victims via fourteen police forces across the UK. By late October 2012, the scandal had resulted in inquiries or reviews at the BBC, within the National Health Service, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the Department of Health.