h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I suppose it's too much of a leap to suggest the compensation be paid for by Savile's estate?"

Damn right it's too much to ask.

Put yourself in the position of a beneficiary of his will. He's been dead for almost two years, you'll have had whatever you're due and, let's say, paid off your mortgage with it and perhaps bought a nice car and gone on holiday.

And now, two years on, someone comes along and says "He was a n0nce, you've got to remortgage your house to pay compo". You'd be justified in pointing out, I think, that he was never charged with, much less convicted of, any offence while alive, and that you - the beneficiary - had no connection with or responsibility for any offences it may now be alleged that he committed. And furthermore, he didn't benefit financially from those offences, so the money you inherited was not in any sense the proceeds of any crime.

Beneficiaries of his will may choose to make some conscience-salving donations to charity or something, but that's their business, and nobody else's. If the money he made had been made from selling drugs to kids, and there was incontrovertible proof, there'd possibly be a case for seizing whatever assets were still traceable two years on. But that's not the case here.

"Savile's estate" is *people*, people who haven't done anything wrong. They should be left in peace. They probably feel bad enough about it already without this suggestion gaining any traction.

I'm fascinated to discover that the swear-word filter on this site won't let me use a word that means "the present moment", or a number, bit string or word that is used only once and never again in cryptography or linguistics. Is "not once" without the "ot" really that offensive?

I agree with Hoo about Saville's estate, especially since most of the money went to charity: it would be very hard to start reclaiming that.

I am concerned that it's turning into an anti-BBC witchhunt: the BBC's commercial rivals are using this as an opportunity to attack the organisation. The BBC needs to stop responding: there is a criminal investigation ongoing, two BBC inquiries and a parliamentary inquiry. Until they report back the BBC needs to stop engaging with the story.

I was not suggesting a witch-hunt of named individuals/family beneficiaries after their awards. I was talking about the charities in his name, being funded from part of his estate (and I did provide a link) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20038794

To be clear - you think money donated by the public to charity, money intended to help relieve poverty or fund a hospital, should instead be taken away from such charities and diverted to paying compensation claims by people who claim to have been abused by a dead man with no criminal convictions?

Really?

No, I wish those who say they were abused had said something at the time, and if they did, they would have been believed, and if they were but nothing was done, I wish something *had* been to stop the rest of them from suffering.

But then we don't live in an ideal world.

I suspect such claims would be paid out of the BBCs and the NHS hospitals' public liability insurance. I think that the NHS self-insure through the NHS litagation authority. It would be covered by higher premiums eventually..

I see now that Paul Gambaccini claims that he was a necrophiliac as well as a paedophile.

Will he next be discovered to have tortured bunny rabbits?


If Paul Gambaccini knew so much for over 30 years then maybe he should have mentioned it before the guy died It doesn't really look very good that you kept quiet Paul.

Surprised? Moi? Mais non, m'sewers, for I have seen
the Opera upon which this real life soap is based -
'twas called "The Barbarous Saville"


~jwf~

Is it too much to ask that Mr Gambaccini has provided proof of his allegations? Or is he just hiding behind the fact you can't defame the dead?

Odious little man.

>>Paul Gambaccini claims that he was a necrophiliac

The victims must be mortified.

I have to say, the one thing I'm going to take away from this whole affair is that Paul Gambaccini seems a deeply unpleasant hypocritical weasel of a man. I never much liked him before, he always came across as quite insufferably smug, but good grief has he no shame in dredging this stuff up, and no self-awareness that by saying he knew all about it he's tantamount to an accessory for not saying anything?

He's hardly alone in that. That was exactly my point way back in Post 2.

He's not, no, but he's the one who it seems has been quickest to the front of the queue to go in front of anyone with a camera and say how disgusting and sordid it was and what a tool Savile was and how he knew all along. It's the alacrity with which he stuck the knife in, and the fact that he waited until the story of the ITV documentary broke to get that public about it, that sickens me.

Glitter again. A bunch of stuff removed from his place. He would have to be completely stupid.

PP.

Glitter has been arrested?


Blimey !! How FAR did the clocks go back this morning? !!!

Well now I'm genuinely not surprised.

Others are apparently involved in the Jimmy Savile paedophile ring...

Who could they be????


Oh, Gary glitter.

Well duh.

I know nothing about these people, I am in America, but i have a guess about something.
My guess is that Jimmy Saville must have had dirt on people so that they wouldn't turn him in for fear of reprisals by him. Once he was dead, the steady stream of complaintants was no longer shushed and the case against him could go forward. Obviously, the ones who were in it with him, part of it, didn't want the case to go forward. But others, who had been blackmailed for other things, felt safe to let these secrets finally be shown, because these secrets had nothing to do with them. Does this make any sense?

>>Does this make any sense?

Savile the master criminal? More likely he got away with it because that sort of thing was common in his line of work, so no-one cared when he pursued it a bit further than most.

I think the thing I am having trouble believing is that "those kinds of things were common in his line of work" because the "kinds of things" I am thinking of are the ones where he is feeling up children in hospitals who are sick or have been operated on. And we are not talking about kids with head colds, we are talking about kids so sick they have to be in a hospital. This is criminal. And I don't think it is common in any line of work or accepted because someone works in the entertainment industry or whatever. We are talking about nurses and doctors ignoring child abuse? I think not. I think their jobs were on the line if they said anything. Or worse.

Yes, I will call you on that "master criminal" charge and raise you that whatever you call it or how he pulled it off, it was wrong, they were wrong, and that sort of thing needs to be made impossible to do. Period.

In my opinion this is just another case of huge power and/or money taking advantage of people who have less by threatening their livlihoods and their lives. Its all a Ripoff, murder, theft, extortion, coup d'etats, rape, election fraud and believe you me when I say it is everywhere on this planet, not just in England or America or Russia or the East.