A few people seem to think that “letting sleeping dogs lie” is the best approach to the news that Sir Jimmy Savile, close friend of the Royal family and Margaret Thatcher, may have abused many, many under age girls. However it seems to me that the fact that Savile is dead is hardly a good reason not to investigate any crimes that may have taken place, whether others were complicit in those crimes and bringing those to justice who took part.
The women concerned deserve to be listened to and taken seriously. They should know that as a society we care that they have been abused. They should know that their lives are worth something more than a dead man’s reputation. They should know that we recognise the harm that has been done to them and that we are going to take steps to prevent similar abuse in the future.
However, we should not confuse a genuine police investigation and a robust examination of the star system within the BBC with sensationalist media headlines and the pruriently pouring over the gory details of child sexual abuse. Gaining horrified, vicarious thrills from the story is not part of recognising the harm done to the victims, in fact it may well contribute to it.
In the coming days and weeks the revelations around Savile will be selling newspapers hand over fist and editors will give in to the temptation to turn a historic and appalling set of crimes into thrilling, sensationalised sex stories. It belittles the victims, trivializes the crimes and encourages all of us to believe we have a right to know what sex act was committed by who, on whom and how often. The curtain of secrecy should be pulled back, but it should not be turned into titillation with a gloss of moral outrage.
How should we respond?
It seems to me that the most fitting way to deal with the lessons of the Savile case are to ensure our institutions are not continuing to enable abuse, nor are they covering up or suppressing claims of abuse. Institutions often take on their own internal culture with a life independent of the original purpose of the organisation. We’ve seen scandals in children’s homes and the Catholic Church hushed up by those in authority who saw the reputation of the organisation as more important than protecting children from abuse.
There may well have been a similar dynamic at work in the BBC where it seems everyone from the tea boy up knew of Savile’s predilections but no one seemed able to stand up and say that raping children is wrong – or even call the police. DJ Liz Kershaw has graphically demonstrated that a culture of routine sexual harassment in the BBC meant that even high profile women felt utterly voiceless, unable even to prevent being assaulted by their colleagues while on air. Sickening.
Deborah Orr pointed out that “Esther Rantzen and Janet Street-Porter – are being berated for “not speaking out” at the time. But women were used to having their criticism of inappropriate sexual expression swept aside. It was one of the things women trying to break into a man’s world had to put up with, in the hope and expectation that they could change things in the future.”
I wouldn’t condemn anyone for not speaking to the authorities on the strength of a rumour but we should be creating a culture where people feel able to speak up and say “this is wrong”. Any organisation where not just the victims of abuse but those who witness or know of that abuse are unable to report it is corrupted to the core. Until that culture is tackled it’s going to be difficult to know if the stars of today are still using their position to abuse the most vulnerable.
Don’t be the wrong sort of paedophile, or the wrong sort of victim
Grace Dent in the Independent rightly pointed out that “When Jonathan King was made persona non grata for using his fame to entice underage young men, King quacked that this was homophobic as his male hetero counterparts had been at this game for decades. Though it pains me to agree with King, in a wonky way he was correct.”
The actions of Savile and a host of other male stars were written off as harmless fun because the girls concerned were seen as worthless vessels who should be grateful for the attention of the glitterati. King made the mistake of being the wrong sort of paadophile. You can rape children but homosexuality is perverted – which is probably why King was sent to prison and Savile got a knighthood.
Added to this Savile appears to have deliberately targeted vulnerable girls from approved schools, hospitals and care homes who would be easily intimidated and whose testimony would be easy disregarded if they ever did come forwards. He simultaneously went out of his way to court police chiefs, political figures and, yes, the Royal family giving him the protective shield of the establishment not because Margaret Thatcher would directly intervene (that seems pretty unlikely, even for her) but because as a connected superstar he simply appeared impervious against allegations from those already marginalised by society.
Open up the institutions
These are the lessons of Jimmy Savile. Not that he was a monster but that institutions are willing to protect monsters if they are one of theirs. Decades of evidence stacked up against Savile but the BBC treated him like a saint who could do no wrong. When Newsnight commissioned an investigation into the allegations it was spiked just weeks before the BBC aired a hagiography as tribute to him. Even after his death the long years of cover-ups had created a momentum of their own the weight of which was more than enough to crush any inconvenient children.
It’s no coincidence that it was ITV who broke the story despite the meticulous investigation that the BBC’s Newsnight had conducted (and then shelved). Now the dam has burst all the sordid secrets are coming out, no doubt to consume many others in their wake. It’s likely the BBC will now be keen to seen to comply with the criminal investigations that are sure to follow.
We should ensure that today’s icons – whether they be stars of pop and television, churchmen, the founder of wikileaks or high ups in political parties are not given special treatment because of their status or out of fear that a scandal would harm the reputation of their colleagues.
We should all care about the abuse conducted in the dark corners of insular organisations no matter how fondly we think of them because an organisation that covers up child abuse or sexual harassment doesn’t deserve to be protected. The best form of reparation we can give to the victims of this historic abuse is to ensure that we all take allegations of abuse seriously no matter how sainted or connected the alleged abuser.