A recent report by British authorities reveal Police neglect
Reality is stranger -and worse- than fiction
We take no notice, we do not report, we say nothing, sweep it under the carpet, we are too embarrassed, we do nothing and children continue to be abused.
Real sins of omission.
Police forces failed to “join the dots” and missed opportunities to apprehend Jimmy Savile, a critical report says.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary said forces had failed to understand the depth of the DJ and TV presenter's sexual offending, and had mishandled complaints and intelligence.
The report reveals the earliest known complaint was in Cheshire in 1963.
The HMIC also warned that failures to share intelligence on a prolific offender could happen again.
The report, which was commissioned by Home Secretary Theresa May, was an attempt to find out how much police knew about Savile before he was exposed as a sex offender in 2012.
The former presenter of the BBC's Top Of The Pops and Jim'll Fix It, who also worked as a Radio 1 DJ and received a knighthood in 1990, died aged 84 in October 2011 - a year before the first allegations were broadcast in an ITV documentary.
'Acting with impunity'
Mrs May said the HMIC report had brought into "sharp focus police failings that allowed Savile to act with impunity over five decades".
The police watchdog said that it had found five reports made to the police about Savile prior to his death and two pieces of intelligence, all of which had been mishandled in different ways.
In contrast, police have received about 450 allegations spanning several decades in the wake of last year’s revelations. Detectives have assessed 214 of them as being definite crimes, including 32 of rape.
A joint police and NSPCC report released in January outlined offences committed by Savile over 50 years at a number of venues, including BBC premises, schools and hospitals.
The allegations uncovered by HMIC include information passed to the Metropolitan Police’s paedophile unit and a separate anonymous letter which details some of Savile’s methods.
The earliest known missed opportunity to investigate Savile was in 1963 when a male victim reported to Cheshire police that he had been raped by Savile, according to the report. An officer told the victim to “forget about it”.
The man was one of eight people who tried to report Savile but failed to get the police forces involved to do anything. Other victims had contacted Merseyside Police, West Yorkshire Police, the Met and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Anonymous letter
In 1964 intelligence about Savile was entered into a ledger used by the Met’s paedophile unit. It said the DJ had visited an address used by girls who had absconded from Duncroft Approved School in Surrey. There is no record of any investigation.
The Met received further detailed, but anonymous, allegations about Savile’s behaviour in a letter in 1998. In 2003, the Met also compiled a crime report relating to a complaint about a 1970s incident.
“In the light of what is now known, the 1998 MPS anonymous letter makes distressing reading,” said the HMIC report. “Its detail provided the police with an opportunity to pursue enquiries that might have confirmed its veracity.”
Ten years later, officers with Sussex and Surrey Police realised they were both investigating Savile after receiving separate information.
In 2007 Surrey Police compiled a report after complaints from three victims and the following year a Sussex report focused on a complaint from one victim.
The HMIC report said: “Both officers appear to have alerted each other to the reluctance of their respective victims and both decided that neither was able to support the other. As a result, opportunities for mutual support were lost.”
The watchdog said that police had systems and processes to enable forces to “join the dots” and to spot patterns, but these had been either used incorrectly or not at all.
Drusilla Sharpling, HM Inspector of Constabulary, said it would be wrong to claim the same failures could not happen again.
“The findings in this report are of deep concern, and clearly there were mistakes in how the police handled the allegations made against Savile during his lifetime,” she said.
“However, an equally profound problem is that victims felt unable to come forward and report crimes of sexual abuse.”
'Lessons to be learned'
Home Secretary Theresa May said: "The true nature and extent of the allegations against Jimmy Savile are appalling.
"The public rightly want answers to how victims' voices were ignored for so long. This report brings into sharp focus police failings that allowed Savile to act with impunity over five decades.
"While we can never right this wrong, we must learn the lessons to prevent the same from ever happening again."
She said she had ordered work to ensure that the interests of victims were prioritised and "the specific vulnerabilities of children are recognised and addressed".
Chief Constable Mike Barton, who speaks on intelligence for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “We have a national intelligence system which is capable of being interrogated by any trained officer across the UK, to identify suspects, offenders and patterns of behaviour.
“However, our review has highlighted that the Police National Database currently has limitations and although many of them are capable of being addressed, this will have to be over a period of time rather than immediately and will require more money.”
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