The Savile Inquiry

So where have we got to after a week of stories about Jimmy Savile?

Well, firstly, it's now acknowledged that Savile's predatory habits when it came to teenage girls was an 'open secret'. That's certainly the case. Over the years I've interviewed a fair number of people who appeared on Top of the Pops in the 1960s and '70s, and the stories about Savile were widespread and all pretty much the same. The most commonly used word to describe the world of TotP was 'disgusting'.

Savile wasn't, though, unique. While his name was always the first to be mentioned, it wasn't the only one. Others, including some behind the cameras, have also cropped up more than once in conversation.

Obviously this is all hearsay and has no place in a court, even in one of public opinion. But then I'm no insider, I have no access to any special knowledge, and all I hear is the common gossip that circulated freely in pop circles. It is not exactly to the BBC's credit that it didn't pursue the truth or otherwise of allegations that they must have heard in rather more convincing form than I ever have.

But it's worth repeating. Savile wasn't the only one. In his own account, he implied the involvement of the police in his activities. It'll be interesting to see how much of that emerges from the Met's newly launched enquiry.

Meanwhile, there seem to be rather a lot of papers who have a commercial interest in attacking the BBC who are using the Savile case as an opportunity to, er, attack the BBC. And some of that is getting silly.

The Mail Online ran a photo at the end of last week of John Peel dressed in schoolgirl uniform, as it attempted to drag him in (as it were) to a story about paedophilia. The Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph also used the same photo.

This wasn't an 'open secret'. It was simply open. The photo was a (quite funny) publicity shot that was commonplace in the music press of the 1970s. But when the Mail ran it, I worried that all such imagery was now deemed to be suspect. Happily, when I then did a search for 'St Trinian's' on the Mail's site, it came up with page after page of results, many of them illustrated by photos of charming young ladies dressed as schoolgirls, complete with stockings and suspenders.

The story attached to the picture was hardly a secret either. The reason that anyone knows about Peel and teenage groupies in Texas in the early-1960s - or about his 15-year-old wife - is because he was always honest enough to talk about his life. Sometimes rather too openly, as anyone who heard his long on-air accounts in the 1970s of what was then called VD can testify. ('Just play a bloody record,' was the standard response, soon regretted when he put on side two of Meddle at the wrong speed.)

Meanwhile the story has taken a slight detour into the subject of sexism at the BBC in the old days. Undoubtedly true, though the Corporation was probably not the only employer where sexist attitudes prevailed into the 1980s. Not really in the same territory, however, as powerful men using a children's home as a supplier of sexual services.

There have also been attempts by some commentators to use the Savile case as a stick with which to beat the Leveson Inquiry. If press freedom is curtailed, runs this line, how could someone like Savile be exposed?

Well, the problem is that he wasn't exposed. The free press didn't help in this instance. Nor did it in the case of Gary Glitter. Glitter's trial in Britain on charges relating to underage sex resulted in a not-guilty verdict, largely because of the actions of the News of the World, who'd bought the story of the alleged victim.

There are arguments against the conduct of the Leveson Inquiry - and there will be arguments to be made whatever the findings of that inquiry - but Savile can't really be pressed into service on this.

We'll see where we go from here. My suspicion, however, is that this is rapidly turning into one of those stories that will miss the point, that Savile will be offered up as a sacrifice while a large number of other old men count their blessings that it wasn't them.