Media Blackouts

Jimmy Savile at Haut de la Gurenne

Why is everyone in the media claiming that the Jimmy Savile scandal is a total Esther Rantzen - that's slang for 'astonishing shock'?

I don't understand how this can be when one columnist and broadcaster, Milo Yiannopolous, who, incidentally, contributes to The Catholic Herald wrote this on his blog in October 2011...

'National treasure Jimmy Savile is dead. Without meaning to puncture the respectful atmosphere, given all the eulogising going on it is perhaps worth remembering that there was a dark side to this family entertainer too. Savile, star of children’s television favourite Jim’ll Fix It, sued the Sun in 2008 over a series of articles linking him to Haut de la Garenne, the Jersey children’s home where human remains were found and children were allegedly tortured and sexually abused.  

He initially denied ever visiting the home, despite photographic evidence to the contrary. In fact, Savile had close links to managers at the home. A journalist who reported on the case told me there are gruesome revelations waiting to surface that no newspaper felt able to publish at the time, given UK libel law. And then of course there’s Savile’s reported friendship with Gary Glitter. (A case for phone hacking if ever there was one.) Now that Savile is dead and no longer able to issue writs, how long before people start talking?'

To those who are unaware of quite how terrible the Haut de la Garenne case was, in 2007 the human remains of loads of children were discovered on the site in an investigation into ritual and most probably satanic sexual abuse of children that could span literally decades. There, for seemingly decades, anyone who visited the children's home in Jersey seems to have had their pick of little ones who they could devour. The title of Milo's blogpost was, by the way:

JIMMY SAVILE AND THE JERSEY 'MASONIC CHILD ABUSE': HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE START TALKING?

By the way, I hear a lot about this 90% figure that Sir Jimmy is said to have distributed to good causes. I hate to sound 'uncharitable' but if someone gives 90% of their wealth away to 'charidee', that's all very well and good, but we're not really meant to hear of it. Our Lord told us to keep our good deeds, or at least our almsgiving, secret, so that we may be rewarded by Our Father in Heaven, who sees in secret.

To learn more about the Haut de la Garenne scandal - a scandal from which Sir Jimmy tried to distance himself despite the fact that photographs of his visit there emerged proving that he lied about his involvement with the kindergarten at the heart of a massive paedophile ring - click here. I wouldn't however, blame you if you'd rather not learn about it. It's pretty dark stuff.

What I'd like to know is: Why was one political blogger and columnist (and broadcaster) making noises about the Savile scandal in October 2011, but everyone else, seemingly, in the media, keeping mum?

It's almost like a national state secret that gets hushed up for 50 years and then gets decommissioned and released to a generation later on. Well, what with the BBC, the NHS and media luvvies involved in the cover-up of Savile's crimes against children, I guess that a State secret is exactly what it was.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging Sir Jimmy (may God have mercy on his soul) nor casting doubt on Mr Oddie's genuine shock of the crimes of the late jewellery rattling, cigar-smoking sex pest. I'm just wondering why only one columnist and blogger told his colleagues to hold back on the eulogising for the moment because Mr Savile was a dark horse implicated in Haut de la Garenne, but the whole media kept on eulogising even though it was, in the BBC and the World of celebrity, apparently an 'open secret' that Mr Savile was up to no good?

I guess journalists just don't talk to each other nowadays. Not even journalists who contribute to the same publications.