Police investigating alleged child sex abuse by the late BBC star Jimmy Savile have identified around 300 possible victims, making him one of the worst offenders in British history, a senior officer said Thursday. Scotland Yard is preparing to arrest other suspects over allegations they acted alongside the veteran television presenter, who died last year aged 84, Commander Peter Spindler said. The claims against Savile have plunged the BBC into crisis and destroyed the reputation of the man who, with his garish tracksuits and ever present cigar, was one of the most famous faces on British TV for decades.
The inquiry was a “watershed” moment in the investigation of child abuse in Britain, Spindler said. The platinum-haired Savile was “undoubtedly” one of the most prolific sex offenders in recent British history and the weight of evidence from the victims against him was overwhelming, Spindler said. “We have to believe what they are saying because they are all saying the same thing independently,” he said.
All but two of the alleged victims were female, he said. Officers had spoken to 130 of the 300 victims who had come forward and formally recorded 114 crimes. Scotland Yard is believed to have investigated in the 1980s an allegation of assault on BBC premises but officers have not found the original file, he added. He said police had not yet arrested or interviewed any suspects but Scotland Yard was “preparing an arrest strategy”. “There’s Savile on his own, and that’s the vast majority of what we’re being told about, (then) there’s Savile and others.
