Celebrity status and institutional trust can enable serial sexual predators to operate with impunity for decades by providing them with access to vulnerable populations, creating environments where abuse can occur, and shielding them from accountability through their public image and connections to powerful institutions.
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GREAT BRITISH PAEDOPHILES - Saville and GlitterAdded:
Great British pedophiles.
Having been in showbiz and television for over 50 years now, I have regrettably worked with or bumped into even lunched with predator pedophiles subsequently revealed past my time at the BBC at al and that operation utri was as much of an eyeopener revelation to me as most of the public in reality.
As a result of the utri announcement, I did have chats with the team specifically regarding Freddy Star. I kept two well-known personalities, personal anecdotes, private for now, as both are still alive. Both incidents took place at the London Paladium. Well, three really. The Lionel Blair story is a tale for another day, but the other two are still showbiz active, although well past their abusing date. I'm still thinking about that possibility.
There is another name that has just sprung to mind and that is Ross Davidson from EastEnders RIP. He was the most obvious potential offender I ever knew personally as he would literally drool and lech at young girl cheerleaders when we were attending events as a public appearance and host. I actually stopped contracting Ross as a result of his absurd behavior. A story for another day.
Meanwhile, there are four public notoriety level offenders I'm covering in Great British Pedophiles. Two of whom will feature here in this part one upload.
First, the late and once great Jimmy Savile now buried in an unmarked grave, his Scottish cottage demolished, and his legacy in ruins alongside the countless victims who never got their day in court or satisfaction of judgment. I had lunch at the BBC canteen with Jimmy on one occasion. More of a table availability matter rather than a dining companion choice. What made matters so much more revolting with the Savile case was the fact that he was genuinely an amazing charity fundraiser who raised about 40 million with his efforts and promotions.
The marathons, the simple pleasure of dreams being realized with Jiml fix it and onwards.
I just thought he was likely a closet discreet gay with his dress sense and quirky mannerisms. Although he did pick his nose while eating, which was enough to look away from. Not one hint of an attraction to me. He just set off my gaydar over that hour at a cheap canteen table.
Next, Paul Gad, otherwise known as Gary Glitter. At least he is residing and likely to die in confinement at his majesty's pleasure. Gad was a monstrous repeat offender on an international scale and is seeing out his unhealthy old age at a specialized protection unit in southwest England. I didn't know Gad personally, but I worked with Mike Leander, his songwriter, for 6 months on a uniquely interesting pair of projects.
Mike was a major glitter songwriter, composing a host of hits, including rock and roll parts one and two, I'm the leader of the gang, Do You Want to Touch Me, amongst others. Royalties from these productions paid me for my work. I can emphatically confirm that Mike had no clues as to the hidden glitter agenda.
They weren't hugely personal friends. It was simply show business. And Mike died in 1996 of cancer.
Mike lived with his wife Penny and a host of housebound cats in an upper story apartment in London's West End. He had the idea to make a TV program for housebound cats to watch when the owners were out. He asked me if I wanted a fee or a percentage. I said, "The idea is bats. I want a fee." And I was duly paid.
Cool for Cats became my first 1 million plus VHS tape sale. I got that call wrong. Huge reviews in broad sheet newspapers alongside the tabloids with big pictures of cat reactions from rolling around to launching themselves at the TV screens. I had put some thought into this with audio frequencies and sounds that only cats could hear.
Mike contacted me again a while later and asked if I would like to repeat the project only this time for housebound dogs again. Did I want a fee or a percentage? Hell yes, I want a percentage. I said cool for dogs bombed both sales and with dogs who mostly went back to sleep when it was on or carried on tearing up newspapers.
Anyway, it's a fun anecdote about Mike, who was blissfully ignorant, as was I, of glitters of horrent behavior and abuse.
In part two of this series, we'll look at Max Clifford, who I knew again from lunches at Joe Allen's, the best of showbiz restaurants and Haunt of the Stars in London's West End.
Back in management days, Malcolm McLaren's office was over the road from my offices and studios and was, of course, an ally of Cliffords, and we first met at Malcolm's office. In later years, Malc bought the building my studios were in. And I have a story for another day about accidentally receiving a big pack of Californian Weed for Glenn Matlock, but that is not relevant here, as there is little room for humor with this introduction.
My connection with Max was relevant to both Freddy Star, who I contracted a few times, and in fact, Muhammad Al Fed of Harrod's fame, who has recently been outed postumously as a serial abuser.
And we'll take a look at Ralph Harris, who painted a special picture of me as a rabbit on the phone being an agent. It's a bit unique. We were in a dressing room at HTVTV as it was then in Bristol recording a special and rushing a bit he made a mess. So he turned it over and did a fresh one on the other side. This was proudly hung by our dining table and considered valuable until the revelations of Ralph's abuse came to light. Now it lives in a dust and mouse-filled loft at my eldest son's home. no doubt to be revealed at some stage in the future. I suspect he would be too ashamed and embarrassed to reveal it. Onwards with Jimmy Savile and Gary Glitter for now.
My abiding memory is the particular account that was in a statement that I read of what had been a little boy.
He described what happened when Savile would come around. If the kids were playing in the street, they would just all bomb burst because they'd been told by the mothers, "If the the roller turns up, you come in straight away."
And this lad had been caught out and he was terrified. He was he was frightened.
He'd run and hidden.
He then gets this whiff of cigar smoke and realizes that he's been seen.
There was just something about how clearly the fear was still present in what was a middle-aged man. It was the fear that was instilled by the anticipation of what could happen.
>> And what did you know? Uh he was raped >> in 2011.
Thousands of fans mourned the loss of Sir Jimmy Savile, who was once celebrated in footage like this as one of Britain's biggest stars.
Just months later, exposed as one of the UK's most prolific sex offenders, his memorial stone was removed. He now lies buried in an unmarked grave.
But a decade on, how much do we know about what Savile really was?
In my opinion, Savile was a high functioning psychopath and having dealt with hundreds of sexual offenders during my career, he was definitely one of the most dangerous and prolific offenders I'd ever come across.
>> Attack from the off. Goodness gracious.
Welcome indeed to Top of the Pops. I've got enough.
>> I first went to Top of the Pops when I was about 14 and a half. And when we were all just talking and laughing, he suddenly Jimmy Savile started to put his hand up my dress.
>> He'd strut around with his heavies and just no in the air looking like the king.
He was menacing. He could do anything he wanted.
How did Savile persuade those who should have known better to give him their seal of approval to allow him to use his TV appearances to further court the establishment?
>> Hello, welcome >> and even to make him the face of child protection.
And the closer he got to power, the more untouchable he became.
>> He could get into parties at Buckingham Palace. He could wander at will around St. James's Palace where Charles had his office and he would walk in and drift around Diana's apartment to come and see her. Something that he he clearly had easy access.
>> Analyzing his many TV appearances and using new testimony from victims, witnesses, and a leading detective who investigated Savile after his death.
This film examines the strategies he used throughout his career of abuse.
Everybody thinks they know the story because they're now aware of his offending, but the reality is that he was an abuser first and a celebrity second. By understanding how he could get into so many organizations, how he could operate in so many different environments and still get away with it, that's the story that needs to be told.
This afternoon, just how seriously the police are taking claims of abuse at the hands of Jimmy Savile came in to show abuse on an almost industrial scene.
>> Now, the Metropolitan Police say that it will now take the lead in investigating sex abuse allegations. In 2012, a Metropolitan Police unit was set up in East London to investigate Savile's crimes following claims made in an ITV documentary after his death. Detectives were inundated with harrowing new allegations from the start.
>> In the early weeks, it was really quite overwhelming. It was incredibly shocking and it just continued on day after day after day.
Gradually, Gary and his team began to piece together a picture of how Savile had operated.
Although celebrated for his voluntary work and the flattering TV coverage that went with it, detectives began to uncover a more sinister side to his apparent altruism.
>> You just need to look at every decision and move that he made and look at it through the fact that he was motivated to give him the opportunity to offend.
A former minor, Savile's professional career took off when he DJed in the dance halls of Manchester and Leeds in the 1950s.
Where were you going to find young girls? They were all going to the social dances at the dance halls. So the first place he goes is there. He gets his job there. That's his first career.
Savile carefully controlled which girls were admitted to his dances and took advantage of them later.
>> I was born and brought up near Leeds and Jimmy Savile was well known as a club organizer, MC, front of house manager.
I heard stories about how he very much controlled who was let in and who wasn't let in to his clubs. And in hindsight, I wondered if that's when it all started.
>> To help him deal with potential troublemakers, Savile also deliberately courted local criminals. One was Bill Benny, a feared Manchester hard man.
>> I think Savile's time in the clubs in the 50s and 60s and his association with Bill Benny was really like an apprenticeship.
He was a student without a doubt.
Savile later recalled how he once ordered his doormen to make an example of one nuisance.
He reminisced. They went outside and kicked his head in. They left him lying there concussed. When I run a dance hall, I ruled it with a rod of iron.
He was learning a lot of important lessons um in terms of control and coercion in order to hone and refine his ability to exploit weakness.
This would put him in goodstead for his his next step.
>> The popularity of Savile's dance hall sessions led him to being offered a show on radio Luxembourg in 1958. His high-rating radio show caught the attention of producers at the biggest broadcaster of all.
>> I think the BBC in the '60s could suddenly see youth culture coming along.
The Beatles, uh, pop music and they didn't have any way of dealing with that. They needed an intermediary and Jimmy Savile became that intermediary.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome indeed to top of the pops and how I this evening.
>> Excited by his appeal, the BBC unleashed Savile on a young TV audience, unwittingly starting a pattern of offending which would last for decades.
His professional career went hand inhand with his criminal career and particularly with Top of the Pops because there was very ready and regular access to young people there and in a way that appears to have been if I was being generous say lightly regulated.
By the 70s Top of the Pops was achieving audiences of up to 15 million.
>> Lots of nice and ladies about with us this evening. A lot of nice records we've got. Savile was seen as crucial to the series success and he knew it.
>> Ian Hampton played bass with the band Sparks who with their distinctive performances appeared 15 times on the show in the mid70s. Hampton speaking here for the first time saw a more sinister side to Savile behind the jokey TV facade. Jimmy Savile would actually be there when he wasn't even DJing or introducing people. Um, he'd strut around with his heavies and just nose in the air looking like the king. He was menacing.
He was always menacing.
He could do anything he wanted.
At times, Savile treated Top of the Pops as if it was one of his old nightclubs.
>> I think he regarded Top of the Pops as a happy hunting ground.
>> Hunting ground for >> young ladies? See, I'm not quite sure.
Let's have a look at your muscles. Yeah.
I'll tell you what. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, >> on one occasion, I was on top of the pops. Savile disappeared with a young girl to dressing room.
A few minutes later, she returned looking absolutely shaken.
After I saw this, I went to a producer on the night and I said to him, "What's going on with Savile?" And he shrugged me off. He said, "Don't be ridiculous."
And that was it. That was the response I got from the producer and a couple of other DJs.
>> Well, you mentioned it to other DJs.
>> Yeah.
>> And what did they say?
>> They shrugged it off as well. I think they were in in awe of Savile or in terror. You know, he was a very threatening person.
>> Savile also exerted his influence in more subtle ways.
>> Now, I'm going to tell you about coming on taking my picture now when he's not actually taking pictures for transmission. He focuses on the young lady's legs and he has a private view all of his own. Is that not >> He had normalized abnormal behavior to the point where it wasn't considered a problem that it wasn't considered important. And this is part of the grooming of the environment.
>> Savile was becoming confident enough to abuse openly.
>> We were all ushered in and then I saw Jimmy Savile coming out. All a sudden I saw him pointing to me, but they made me sit on this step. I couldn't even jump down at the edge because it was too high.
>> And good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the top of the pops.
>> All of a sudden, Jimmy Savile turned up.
He didn't say anything. He just I could feel somebody moving their hands towards me and I like moved out the way but then all of a sudden it seemed to just go underneath my underneath me and started fiddling and I was that was it. I got shot and I tried to jump up and move out the way.
>> I tell you sometimes the fellow could get used to all this as it happened to get you.
>> Hand wouldn't go away and I was trying to move it but I tell you his hand was rock solid and it would not move. It would not move and I was getting embarrassed because I couldn't shift it out the way and I was getting shifted.
You know what I mean? It was his hand just kept moving.
When the camera went back, it was closing so we could get off. And I went down and told the man that was next to the cameraman with the headphones.
When I told him what he'd done, he told me to get lost. Ushered me off and said that, you know, the go. Um, he said, "That's just Jimmy Savile.
>> I've got my mouseet type leaning post here."
>> By the 70s, Savile's profile on Top of the Pops had given him the confidence to abuse young girls without being questioned.
He also had the opportunity.
The minimum audience age was supposedly 15, but this wasn't strictly enforced.
>> Some of these young ladies were clearly well well underage, 12, 13, 14. I don't know if the parents even were aware that they were there. I don't think they'd have been happy if they were.
>> Child actor Kelly Gold was a regular audience member on the show at the start of the 70s.
She speaks here about her experiences for the first time on television.
>> I first went to Top of the Pops when I was about 14 and a half and then I went 8 to 10 times over a period of a few months.
I'd turn up in my school uniform and we would change in the toilet area and we would put on our makeup and our high heels or our boots or our hot pants.
BBC staff and higher management were in the bars. They were allowing 14 and 15 year olds to go to the BBC bar, which I did myself, and we were being pied with champagne.
It was a a delight to be given champagne. You're 15. You, you know, you don't drink.
when you've taken those girls away from that arena and then moved them into a private area of the BBC, um you know, for example, the the bar, why are they there? The fact that they're, you know, they're drinking alcohol is is is one thing, but the fact is is why are they there?
For what purpose?
>> From the bar area, Kelly would then be moved to the studio.
>> And this one here is a French and this one here is a Scotty. During the filming of Top of the Pops, the floor managers would have a word with you and ask you to come up up onto the floor.
>> Well, I said, "Excellent floor manager down there." I said, "Bring me the young lady. Keep me company." And this is his choice, you see. Because at number >> If you made the top table, so to speak, then there's a good chance you would be asked to go to one of the dressing rooms.
>> What would they say?
Um, Jimmy Savile requires you in his dressing room.
There was a day bed in the dressing room and inside a lot went on.
Drinking, exploiting girls, touching people don't realize behind the scenes there was grooming going on.
and Jimmy Savile was the main instigator of the grooming.
I was invited to go to his dressing room and when I got there there was another couple of girls and Jimmy Savile and we were given a glass of champagne and when we were all just talking and laughing, he suddenly Jimmy Savile started to put his hand up my dress and I immediately very quick reaction swiped it away.
I soon then left the uh dressing room never to to be invited back.
>> Getting the push back immediately was a signal that it was probably more trouble than it was worth. He looked for compliant individuals and those that would not make a fuss. With many offenders, they have an unuring ability to pick up on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of individuals.
Claire was adopted. She told me that she always wondered why her mother had given her away as a baby, that she didn't love her enough. So maybe when you are shown affection by an adult, you you crave it.
In 1971, 15-year-old Clare Mccalpine was a Top of the Pops audience regular, coming into contact with celebrities there, among them, Savile.
She became good friends with Kelly.
>> What I liked about Cla, she was quite amusing. She was a lovely dancer and she was fun to be with.
Cla had started to go back to the dressing room of Jimmy Savile. She went quite a few times to the dressing room.
And then the next time I saw her again at Top of the Pops, she was rather upset. She thought she might be pregnant. Now being pregnant to who? Was it Jimmy Savile? Maybe. But Cla was worried that she was quite a few weeks late.
And then the next time I was aware of Claire was when I read it in the News of the World that she had killed herself.
And there was a picture of myself on the stage. Claire alongside Jimmy Savile.
He looks like he's holding her hand there.
Oh, I think he is.
Never noticed that before.
Well, I cried. I cried for my friend to think that she had felt there was no way out.
I was terribly upset. I was very sad.
and I I never went to Top of the Pops again.
>> Following a short inquest, it emerged that before her daughter's death, Clare's mother had complained to the BBC that a celebrity had seduced Clare after she attended Top of the Pops. The celebrity denied the allegation, but as with complaints about Savile, it was inadequately investigated.
You know, I don't see anything that has come out from what happened that would really lead me to believe that they they really understood what went wrong and they really understood the depths of how outrageous it was.
Though the Top of the Pop's audience age was later raised to 16, Savile's abuse continued throughout his time on the series.
>> You know, I think there were a lot of missed opportunities to stop Savile much earlier.
He was so popular with the British public that the BBC couldn't afford to lose him and were prepared to turn a blind eye to all manner of things in order to keep him there. He was their cash cow in many ways.
By the 70s, Savile was in his mid-40s and as this performance showed, was looking out of place as the BBC's face of youth.
>> He'd become really quite a bit older than certainly most of the acts on top of the props. And I think that could have become more and more apparent.
>> And good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome indeed to Jim Fix It.
>> Once again, Savile adapted based partly on his idea. The BBC gave him his own prime time show aimed at a family audience, >> Jiml Fix It.
>> He then transitions to the Jiml Fix It figure where he then becomes a father figure in a suit sitting in a big armchair.
>> Can you save us?
>> He was still in the position that he could have access and opportunity to offend uh against young people. And I think that was probably deliberate and a thought through uh strategy.
>> Savile had now become a respectable family entertainer. The persona he created helped him to become the face of public information campaigns.
>> Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 10 vital minutes all about kids.
>> Lucrative commercials.
>> A day is an offbeat ticket.
>> And of course, charity fundraising often giving him further access to young people.
has a very special guest. Jimmy Savile's there to see the things.
>> One strategy he employed during the peak period of his abuse was simple but effective.
>> One thing that struck me clearly was how compartmentalized his life was. That we we could see that there were pockets of offenses in many different parts of the country and that they weren't connected.
And then you start to think, well, why why was that the case? And you know, rather like terrorist cells that you you don't provide all your information to to more than one so that it it can't overlap.
>> If we look back at the time that these offenses were being committed, there was really no overlap in the police intelligence.
He was just somebody who was very difficult to keep track of.
In an interview in 1991, Savile was frank about his nomadic lifestyle, but gave no hint of the sinister motives behind it. And you move quite a bit around. You're you're a mobile man. You You don't put down roots necessarily.
>> No, not really.
>> No, you don't carry much baggage.
>> Uh, no. I have I've got a a shoulder bag that's not been unpacked for nearly 30 years. It's a different bag when it wears out. But I mean, I never unpack completely anything anywhere because I've never I don't usually sleep in the same bed more than two nights running cuz there's no point in it. I wander around like I sail the country.
>> He also deliberately used a variety of caravans or mobile homes. One he nicknamed the hustler.
The smaller you can make the space that you are at most vulnerability and risk, the better. And so he carried his own environment to abuse around with him wherever he went. You can narrow down the possibilities to be detected. And of course, he even got the BBC to pay for it by saying, "I'll tell you what, I'm going to do a program called Savile's Travels."
This became a successful BBC Radio 1 program spanning the late 60s and early 70s. Again, it was based on Savile's idea.
>> Here we are back home again with today's edition of Savile's Travels.
>> Savile took his mobile home on tour for the series, but would also regularly keep it in BBC car parks.
When I was working there, it was very much a case of everybody knew about it, but nobody knew what to do about it. I think a blind eye was turned.
And I was invited to a meeting with Jimmy Savile, and I don't know what provoked him to say this, but he just turned around and and and bragged to me that he'd had three 14year-old girls in his trailer that morning. And when he said had, he meant in the sexual sense, I'm sure, because he put the emphasis on on the word had. And I I just found that appalling. And I said to him, I said, "Well, you know, why are you bragging about that? That's nothing to be proud of." Oh, he said, "You don't understand." He said, "You know, I've got a deal with the man upstairs." By the man upstairs, he meant God. He said, "Because I do so much for charity and all the good work I do," he turns a blind eye to my indiscretions.
I went through the motions of sitting in on the meeting and then at the end of it I I said, "No way. Do I want to work on a program with him?" My whole reason for not taking things further was I had no evidence and I didn't know anybody who had Now then, >> what Savile had referred to as good work often simply provided him further opportunities to offend.
And by now he had taken steps to protect himself by reaching to the very top of the British establishment.
In the 70s and 80s, Savile's influence in the NHS grew. Already a volunteer at Leed's General Infirmary, he became a prominent figure in other hospitals, including Broadmore. His growing profile as a supporter of good causes, protecting him from suspicion.
People have said to me, "I what about all this hospital work? Surely this has to be a publicity gimmick."
5 minutes in a hospital is a gimmick. If you've got the newspapers there, if you've got the television there, 5 minutes is a gimmick.
5 years, it's not a gimmick.
>> Savile even had his own bedroom on site at Stoke Manderville Hospital, which houses the National Spinal Injury Center. He also had unsupervised access to the wards.
>> They're always here. you seeing you do such a job for us.
>> Savile's relationship with hospitals was particularly concerning because of the vulnerability of the people that he prayed upon.
Often offenders will have barriers to committing offenses and it appeared in Sav's case that nearly all of those had been removed.
>> I didn't know or hadn't heard of him.
They said he raised so much money for them to build this national spinal cord injury center and everyone knew about it. In the early '9s, Pauline was being treated at Stoke Manderville for a rare disease that left her paralyzed from the waist down.
The first time I met him was on the basketball field.
I wheeled my wheelchair on the side and just sat and watched.
He came round and said, "Who have we got?" And I said, "Oh, my name is Pauline." And we shook hands. Then coming back, Jimmy Savile came behind me and rested his two hands on my shoulders. It was comforting. So I thought, how kind.
It's quite common with abusers that they will use non-intimate contact with somebody that they've they've picked out to gauge the reaction, particularly in a public setting.
20 or 30 minutes later, I was just sitting on my wheelchair and he just came in and bent down.
The next thing I knew, it was Jimmy Savile had put his hand up my skirt into my pants.
I couldn't scream. I just froze, shaking.
He looked at me, was looking straight at my eyes and smiling.
Then Jimmy Savile put his fingers inside me.
I didn't know what to do.
Part of me died. I started crying because I couldn't really tell anyone.
Remember, everyone thinks this man is a God-scent angel.
And then I started blaming myself. I said it was my fault.
>> The story of Jimmy Savile's offending in NHS hospitals is unusual to the point of being scarcely credible.
>> Kate Lampard investigated Savile's abuse on NHS premises after his death. There were 60 victims relating to Stoke Manderville alone. I asked myself often whether or not he was seizing opportunities or whether he had in a calculated way set up those opportunities.
On balance, I came to the view that he was a very calculating individual who takes that opportunity to abuse an huge number of people and to wreck their lives.
I mean, many of these were young children. It's a pretty terrible story.
Why do you think that people might have been afraid to challenge his behavior?
>> People probably felt they weren't necessarily going to believe them. Um, and if it came to it, they'd be more likely to believe him.
Savile did not rely on his celebrity alone for protection. Instead, he took further steps to ensure his word would carry even more weight.
Ramblers explore the vandalized remains of a cottage in Glen Co in the Scottish Highlands. The property once belonged to Jimmy Savile.
Back in 1999, another visitor to the site was the heir to the throne.
Savile had this place, one of his many bolt holes that he had dotted around the country.
And Charles paying homage to Jimmy Savile at his home in uh Glen Co. Uh it was an utterly bizarre situation.
Savile had these women dressed up in waitress piphors to serve them tea.
>> There's no suggestion that Prince Charles or his staff were aware of Savile's offending, but Charles's willingness to take part in this publicity stunt was proof of how successfully Savile had manipulated him over many years. I think that Savile's relationships with the establishment was designed for a purpose.
The royal family gave him a veneer of respectability that he maybe wouldn't have been able to have achieved otherwise. He didn't appear to be some cartoon character anymore. Sam was very bright in that he very carefully built protection for himself to carry on doing what he did. He deliberately constructed a roof above his head which protected him from the consequences. With his abuse, he became almost untouchable because if you attacked him, you'll be attacking the people around him.
Savile jumped on the bandwagon of charities and being seen alongside royalty and not just royalty, government ministers. The prime minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, he latched on to anybody and everybody whom he could use to his own benefit that would hide the dark secrets that he was keeping.
The then prime minister Margaret Thatcher saw nothing but good in Savile as her appearance on Jiml Fixit showed.
>> Can I thank you for everything you do?
>> And she wanted to reward him with a nighthood.
This was blocked in the early 80s by civil servants in part because Savile had boasted of sleeping with girls during charity runs.
In the meantime, Savile painstakingly worked on his relationship with Prince Charles. First through his charity work and then more informally.
>> At the time, Charles was gullible. I mean, I'm saying with hindsight, uh, he was gullible. At the time, he was gullible as was everybody else.
>> Astonishingly, Savile began to involve himself in the royal couple's personal affairs. He inserted himself into their marriage in the way that he was someone who made himself available and Charles liked having him around.
He would turn up, Diana told me, at Kensington Palace where she lived, uninvited and would manage to persuade the police on the on the gate who never let anyone in uh without an invitation to walk in.
She said he would sort of come and say, "Well, I'm just here just to check up on you." And she said that Charles used to sort of quip. If there was a problem that needed sorting out, they get Jimmy do it because Jim will fix it.
I think she found it slightly unnerving.
>> Once again, those with suspicions felt powerless to challenge him.
>> I always had my doubts about him. I just didn't like the man. I thought he was he he he was ghastly. He would go into the office in the summer in particular where you've got secretaries there who are doing correspondence. They um they're wearing a sleeveless dress and he would take their hand and kiss their hand and run it run his lips right up their arms which is pretty unsavory.
This was something he even carried out on on Princess Diana. He licked Princess Diana's hand and she recoiled from that um as she told me it was um something very creepy.
>> I did voice it at the time saying it's not really on and I did say that man is is dreadful but he was pretty well established in government circles with prime ministers of the day and by being pretty well established he was fairly untouchable.
In 1990, despite the resistance from Whiteall, Savile was given a knighthood.
He'd finally got what he wanted.
Prince Charles marked Jimmy Savile's 80th birthday with an extraordinary gift and an even more extraordinary letter.
The gift was a box of Kohiba cigars.
But then he he encloses with this box of cigars and a pair of personal cufflings for Jimmy a note in which he sort of eulogizes Savile.
>> Charles reportedly wrote, "Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country, Jimmy. This is to go some way in thanking you for that."
The prince's office declined to comment for this program. Jimmy Savile who's getting protection, massive protection.
If you're a friend of the royal family, a chief constable is going to think twice about putting a team on an investigation of you.
>> In fact, Savile was formally interviewed by police on just one occasion, but the case was dropped.
In the end, it was left to victims from this approved girl school in Surrey to finally help expose him.
A documentary on ITV1 this week will feature five women who claimed they were abused by the TV presenter as teenagers in the 1970s. Savile was never exposed for his abuse during his lifetime, but a year after his death, five victims spoke out on an ITV exposure documentary. Two were from Dunkraftoft School in Surrey, an approved institution for vulnerable and troubled young women that Savile visited regularly in the 1970s.
>> We know he stayed overnight there.
Number of girls at the time subsequently came forward and say they were abused by him. Uh and very quickly really that became a door that opened up into his whole world.
Myron Jones was the first journalist to uncover Savile's abuse at the school for a BBC investigation a year before that was never aired.
Jones was helped by Michelle Shepard, a former Dunkraftoft pupil who crucially had shared messages about Savile on a social media website after his death. At Dunkra, it was always rumors because there was a lot of privacy, strangely enough, with the girls. So it was only after his death, you know, really that I became aware of the extent of his abuse because I was part of a group called Friends United and I kept in touch with some of the girls and I did do some research at that point. With Shepherd's help, Jones discovered Savile had abused girls, often in return for visits to BBC television center.
It was evidence again of how his career and offending went hand in hand. You look at his pattern of activity, his mo again and again he targets particular institutions which give him a particular chance. Institutions where there is access to young girls, institutions that will be in his debt and institutions where allegations will not be believed because of the nature of the people there.
It later emerged that Surrey police had received complaints about his abuse at Dunkraftoft and that Savile was interviewed about these in 2009.
He denied everything.
I did find out that he was reported to the police, but nothing was ever done about it. So, this was a shock. This is quite unbelievable that you know the police were aware that things had gone on but they didn't really act on any of this.
>> The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute Savile because complainants were allegedly unwilling to give evidence but the police's interview methods were flawed.
victims thought they were the only person talking to the police and it was treated in that way. Rather than putting evidence of a number of people together, uh they picked them off one by one.
Potential victims are now informed if others have also complained.
The charities who had run Dunkraftoft at the time said they were shocked and saddened at the findings of abuse.
It It's just a bloody shame that he had to die first before any of this was exposed. And that always puzzles me is that he was able to get away with it for so long. It's incredible really. It's incredible.
Once revealed, the scale of Savile's abuse created a sense of national crisis alongside the police's operation Utri investigations were launched at the institutions where he had abused for so long, most notably the BBC and the NHS.
managers did not acknowledge that they knew. What they did accept was that there was gossip and um you know, innuendo.
If that was the case, you know, why did they not um act on that sort of sense of shock really that sensible people had allowed this to happen over a very very long period of time. They stopped seeing what was before their their eyes.
This report makes sorry reading for the BBC. It was a similar story at the BBC.
An independent inquiry headed by Dame Janet Smith found no evidence that senior staff were aware of his conduct, but it concluded the BBC's culture had allowed him to go undetected, missing numerous opportunities to stop him. It was plainly concerned about its reputation >> and devastatingly that it appeared to have been more concerned about its reputation than in focusing on protecting vulnerable young audiences.
>> That there were young girls who might be exposed to moral danger on top of the pops.
The revelations about Savil have transformed many aspects of child protection.
There are now more stringent safeguarding protocols throughout society. Victims are now more likely to be believed. But are these enough to prevent another Savile, a serial offender who roamed the country from institution to institution? There was a number of inquiries that were raised for all sorts of organizations um involved.
They were all looking at what went on in their own organization rather than the focus being Savile. And so what didn't happen was a coordinated and clear picture of of what he had done himself in order to be able to offend with impunity for so long. the conditions, the processes, and the guidance and the safeguarding are stronger. But there will always be people who think that they can get away with the things that he got away with in their own environment.
Unless you confront what happened and how it happened, you can't take measures to stop it happening in the future. And that is the real problem here. That it's still possible for abusers to abuse and for their bosses or the people in charge of them to turn a blind eye or just give them a nice reference that they get sent somewhere else.
>> 10 years on from his death, the actions of one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders still casts a long shadow, nowhere more than for those he abused.
This was somebody who had had a catastrophic effect on potentially, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people's lives. And it's really important that we don't just sweep it under the carpet as an aberration.
Savile was a prolific predatory sexual offender and all the things that he did in order to be able to get away with it for as long as he did are the things that are still out there in society in different forms.
To be honest, I wasn't the same from that day.
It means that I wasn't able to feel anyone's love because I didn't want them touching me.
I'm still dealing with the anger.
If only people around him must know what Jimmy Savile was doing.
Surely if they'd said something, maybe they could have stopped fewer of us going through what we went through.
I don't think justice has been done for Cla.
She would have made, I think, a fabulous actress had she gone on and lived. She would be someone we would know the name today, Cla McCalpine.
She never got that chance.
Heat.
Heat.
Do what you want. Gary Gisser, he couldn't walk down the street without being mobbed. He He was like the queen mom of pop, really.
>> He could have run somebody over. He could have shot somebody, but nobody, the British public, won't ever forgive him for this, and nor should they.
I >> think a child abuser will hide behind many disguises.
With Gary, it happened to be his celebrity status.
>> Pedophilia will never be sexy, even in rock and roll.
And that is the bottom line.
The story starts before the days of Glamrock in the 1950s and a child dreaming of fame.
>> I remember and say as a 13year-old, I am going to be a star. He is a star.
>> A fallen star.
>> He's a star. A fallen star. He's a star.
He's a rock and roll star.
remember this way.
>> Gary Glitter was born as Paul Gad in 1944 in Oxfordshire. The oldest of two children, he never knew his father or a stable family life. Gad proved a difficult child. By the time he was 11 years old, he was in children's homes.
He ran away continuously, a clear sign of his early unhappiness.
By 1956, Gad was living with his mom and stepfather in South London. There, the young teenager started school, very much an outsider.
>> He wasn't like one of the other ladies.
We play sports and boxing and things. He couldn't even go after himself at the time. He couldn't even kick a ball. He just had this aura around him. I mean, stories I tell you about the boys wanted to punch his lights out cuz he's a fairy. He wasn't normal. He wasn't like us. No, >> the young dad did have some friends, those from local children's homes, who shared and perhaps understood his unhappiness at not belonging.
>> There was a Dr. Bernardo's home in Tennis and Row. He would uh more outgoing around them than he was in my group of friends that he grew up in.
>> Did he ever talk about his family in his room?
>> No, no, I don't know anything about his family and uh it was never mentioned in conversation even when he was getting on. a well around the table at this house, my house.
>> Did you get the impression he was adopting your family?
>> He was certainly looking for roots in this love, I suppose, is a word that we could be looking forward.
>> Yeah.
>> Alone and seemingly unloved, Gad needed a focus. He found it in music where he channeled all his energy. Aged 13, Gad formed his first band.
>> Well, myself, I was a drummer. I had a set of hat boxes which were set up as a as you'd have a drum kit. And uh this is where we were actually in the house where we used to have our sessions a couple of times a week. The only time our band practiced and that was in my front room. We used to come out of the front room there and up to play these gigs at the two eyes. Cliff Richard Marty Wild was around. I mean, they weren't big stars in they were sort of on the way.
>> In later life, Glitter would protest his musical origins weren't given due recognition.
>> This is the famous Two Eyes Coffee Bar.
At least what's left of it, what it used to be. Um 1958 59. That's where I used to sing. I mean, there's not even a plaque, you know, like they have Cliff Richard and Gary Glitter and people like that should have it on the wall there, don't you think?
>> How did Paul fit in with that crowd?
>> He got on very well. I mean, he was he was in his element cuz this is always what he wanted to do.
And there's his opportunity. I mean, he was he was dynamite.
>> Gad had finally found his home in rock and roll. He married at 19, but one year later he left his wife and child and went to Germany. By 1965, he had hooked up with the Boston Showband, pursuing his dream of fame.
>> We used to play support people like Jimmyi Hendris, um, Little Richard, Bill Haley, and he always wanted to show that we were as good or better. Quite often we went down as well as the as a headline performer.
I mean he was uh undoubtedly an excellent showman and more than just like a showman. He gave it his old his old person gave it 110% all the time, you know. I mean, uh, but there again, he he was in his early days, he he could sing a good old tune as well, you know.
But fame wasn't instant. As the months began to roll past, Gad's desire for stardom became a burning obsession.
Sometimes he would get very upset, especially when he had a little bit of drink and and uh you taking too many tablets and he would literally burst into tears and and uh getting get himself into a state thinking it's it's all gone. He's missed it.
>> Gad searched for the elusive magic formula of success through changing his own sound, image, and name. Gad became bucket, became Raven, and there were others. It's an abiding theme of his career, a willingness to be packaged and shaped in the bid for stardom, even if it meant being teased for it later in his career.
I tell you, my mascara is running.
>> By 1971, Gad had come up with yet another name.
Now 27 years old, it was probably his last stab at pop fame.
>> We were down near Luxembourg, place called Tria.
And we got a call back from London saying, "No, I've changed my name. I've got a record out. My name's going to be Gary Glitter. Come back to London and uh we get together." Mike Leander was the man actually who created the whole glitter phenomenon really. Um he wrote, produced all of Gary's stuff. He worked with loads of big names, people like the Beatles, Marian Faithful, Rolling Stones, lots more. And in Paul Gad, Mike Leander found a willing and malleable subject for his vision, Gary Glitter.
The original guitar sound was recreated from a I think it was a guitar found in a broom cover that Mayfair sound studios in in West End. It wasn't a particularly good guitar. It was just no guitar but he he reuned it and did some bits and pieces on it and got that, you know, runchy sound.
Put the drums on baseline, double tracks it a few times and harmonized it a couple of times. Well, the whole glitter thing um that Mike created was based around uh kind of a jungle. Lots of drums, real primitive sound.
>> To match the sound, Leander created the perfect pop idol for the 1970s. Glam and loud.
>> I saw, I think, two photographs of him before he was glitter, and it wasn't an image that could have put him where he was going. So, um, he had his his teeth done. He had, um, do you call it a wig? Do you call it a hairpiece? He wasn't bald. He just didn't have very substantial hair underneath it. Um, and he had a weight problem. And he wasn't particularly tall.
So, he had quite a lot going against him other than a burning desire to succeed.
And yes, he was manufactured.
>> Gary was ready for it. He'd been primed at loads of times with sort of a touch of star not quite. So that was it. You know, was away, you know.
>> Gary Glitter released his first single, Rock and Roll parts one and two.
The test for the carefully created image and music had arrived.
stormed at the charts and uh created an opening for that glitter music, you know, the bands were doing glamour, but that just opened it up that bit more extra.
The first gig we ever did uh was a small village hall and that would hold about 600 people and about 1,500 people turned up. It was absolute chaos.
It may have been manufactured, but Gary Glitter caught the fans imagination.
>> If you look at um Dr. Frankenstein creating a monster, I suppose you could say that Mike Leander was a Dr. Frankenstein and Gary was a monster.
Really, >> the timing was perfect. It was the early 1970s.
Glam Rock was exploding and Gary Glitter took his place as its king.
>> The outrageous dress sense, over-the-top behavior, and unique sound was consumed by a hungry public. All singing to Glitter's tune.
>> One of the first uh Top of the Pops programs I managed to catch. U he was on. He just appeared and it completely uh knocked me out for 10, you know. It was totally uh like he's just landed from Mars, you know. It was unbelievable, you know. It was his um over the top uh larger than life. He was a sort of like a come and join me, you know, we'll have fun together. We'll have a great time. Uh which I think music's all about. Pop entertainment. Uh for me, he was the um pro prototype, if you know what I mean. um his hair right down to his big silver platform boots.
Uh he came across like he was like a comic book superhero beckoning over you know with the eyes the the arched eyebrows you know the stare like a reb in the middle of the night you know and he was getting away with it. It was uh it was excellent. It was fantastic.
>> It was a glitzy formula which led to hit after hit. Over the next three decades, there would be 20 million records and 11 top 10 singles, all with the same distinctive and recognizable glitter brand.
I certainly think he he saw himself as pretty well top of the tree of of the glam situation when he used to go to [ __ ] um in the evening and and if people like Pete Towns and or Bowie asked for autographs for their kids or for whoever he he was thrilled and and actually was uh sort of it made him feel that he had arrived.
>> Gary Glitter had given Paul Gad what he dreamed of as a child.
Fame.
Celebrity allows access to all areas.
For Glitter, it was no different. It meant a huge mass of young, adoring teenage fans and Temptation.
That light from a fan.
Is that lovely? All love.
More than any other era, glam rock was defined by its fans.
Screaming teenagers celebrating their pop idols. And in this coliseum of fame, Gary Glitter soaked up the adoration.
Well, we had an amazing fan base and uh it was mostly teenagers um 14, 15 year olds who bought our records and uh if we would do the uh the rainbow for instance down in London, the place would be uh packed out with kids. It's quite crazy at times.
I can't you can't see yourself as a sex symbol. I don't think anybody puts tries to put me out as that way. However, if somebody digs me enough to think uh that I am, then fine. You know, >> being a sex symbol allowed more than adoration.
It also meant sex with the fans and Gary Glitter seemed to have no inhibitions.
>> We were in Helsinki and it was it appeared that the entire theater had decanted to outside the hotel. Um, and we were up on a very high floor looking down. There was just a swarming mass of screaming kids outside. And uh so Gary said, "Well, you know, go downstairs and get half a dozen of them and and bring them up," which I did. So I grabbed four or five maybe six girls who were closest to the back door and uh whizzed them in and and took them up to the room and he signed autographs, sat and chatted with them and uh I discovered that my services were no longer required. So um I left and adjourned to the bar.
I think it's endemic. I wouldn't know for a fact either way whether he had sex with uh girls under 16 or not. In the same way now as as then. Um 14 and 15 year olds can look like 17 and 18 year olds. It's not usually a question that most people ask.
>> And Gary probably didn't either.
>> No.
But even in the 1970s, sex with the fans could be a risky business.
>> There was a time I think we were down in Kent. This car stopped and it was Gary's car and these two girls got out and I never thought any more about it until the security guy told me that what happened later on up the road. There's a road police roadblock just up the front and um some panic button had been pressed and it turned out they were looking for um an escape prisoner who uh absconded from a local jail and uh I think somebody got a bit worried that they might find Gary with two girls in the limousine or whatever, you know. So >> glitter was living a rock and roll cliche. Along with the sex and drugs came the requisite celebrity accessory, the country mansion. It made an impression on the youngest fans he met, his eight-year-old daughter's friends.
It >> was only through talking the playground that we became aware that Sarah had a famous daddy. And um then of course that was like an added bonus. Like, oh, she's my best friend and her dad's famous.
Wow. It was another world. The house was huge. The It was just I can remember the smell. The smell was just of all new, you know, as an adult now, all new units, new wood and things. It was a mansion, I think, that he'd done up. Um, everything was plush. There was like plush carpet, video recorder. Nobody nobody had them in those days. And there was um a room that had jars and jars of sweets. We could just help ourselves.
No limit. It's just dream come true for any child really.
>> Paul Gad was certainly living his childhood dream as Gary Glitter. But members of his backing band noticed a marked difference in him. He was beginning to believe the hype.
>> I can remember going into his dressing room. We used to have a little chat about the show before we went on. And uh I'd known him as Paul for years and years, of course. And I said, "Look, Paul, uh" he says, "Don't ever call me Paul again. Gary is my name." And there's only the two of us in a room.
And uh I sort of realized then he's he seemed to be having a kind of a personality makeover.
Everything was um publicity and everything was surrounded by minders and bodyguards and whatever and just the aura that goes with it, I think, you know.
Right. The solo from me.
>> How did you go again?
>> No.
>> Well, bigger than you could imagine. In effect, >> it was Gary Glitter on stage, offstage.
There was no Letto. I mean, it got silly. I mean, if there was a four-star hotel, they'd put us in that. There was a fivestar fivestar hotel. They put him in that. He would always be one better, you know, but that was Gary, you know. He always had to be one better. If you'd have got a big car, he'd have got a bigger one still. Sort of thing.
There was no let up. Glitter moved to center stage at the expense of those around him.
>> He loved to be the center of attraction.
He really couldn't help himself. Um so for a time there was this feeling that he wanted us to be more in the background. There was an occasion when Gary did an interview one of one of the music papers and during the interview he he couldn't remember anybody's name in the band. And of course then the next time I met up with the guys at the band, what's he playing at? You know, he knows damn well who we are. This ambition, this ego thing seemed to destroy most of the relationships that he had with people.
>> I can't really go out anymore without being bothered quite a lot. It was like a a little mini Elvis Presley type scenario, you know, sort of keep him happy at all times. The show will go on if he's kept happy.
>> I love champagne for breakfast.
>> Behind the scenes, Glitter had become unbearable.
>> Like is it really like a kind of a more expensive Andrew's liver, isn't it?
Some members of his backing band were starting to leave because of it, but not before noticing a downside to the glitter bandwagon.
>> At times, I used to feel sorry for him because he'd got almost where he wanted to be. He had all this fame, played in these venues with thousands of screaming kids. He made himself unpopular um with a band, with a roll crew, and uh he'd sort of end up in his uh hotel suite with all the luxury, everything, and that he'd end up watching a telly on his own. And um God knows what was going through his mind then.
>> It's a telling question. What lay behind the carefully created pop idol Gary Glitter? At the height of his career in the mid 1970s, nobody bothered to ask it, and there was a dark secret. It was to emerge on an Easter weekend when Glitter was holding a party at his country mansion. a friend of his daughter was to discover the real Gary Glitter. Justine Akroyd was only 8 years old.
All the usual things were going on, you know, good food being cooked and the swimming pool being lit up at night and um there was just it was just always fun and nice and cozy and and then in the evening um me and Sarah went to bed and then I realized it was a man in the bed with us. I wasn't sure who it was, but it was a man. And um and then then I realized it was her dad.
And um by now he'd turned to me.
And at first I thought he was just maybe cuddling me and um lying up against me.
And it didn't feel comfortable. You know, I didn't know him well enough for him to be doing that. Um, so I lay there really still.
Um, but he was too close.
And um, then I felt him lifting up my nighty.
Um, and then like I felt it and uh, it seemed to go on for a long time.
It hurt and um I was still scared of being rude and I didn't know where to go. So bit by bit I moved nearer and nearer to the edge of the mattress.
When he finally seemed to collapse and and sort of not be moving anymore, I asked Sarah if she was awake and she was. So, we went we went through to her bathroom. It was her bathroom. It was like right next door. And we went in and we locked the door.
And um I felt myself down there and I was I was I was hurting and I was I was I didn't want to look so I didn't so I scrubbed.
And the next morning he gave me an Easter egg, a big fancy Easter egg. And and I remember hoping that he'd forgotten about the night before because he might think I was dirty.
On three. One, two, three. Very nice.
>> As the 1970s drew to an end, Gary Glitter hid his terrible secret. But it wasn't the reason why fame deserted him.
Instead, it was the death of Glamrock.
The new pop anthem was Anarchy in the UK.
Punk rock was capturing the nation's imagination. Glitter Star was on the way and he was on the road working a B circuit of clubs running out of cash.
We were actually working that week in South Wales uh fourth core. Gary came down. It was about 7:30 then. Gary came down this sh big fur coat muzzled up and surrounded by tour managers, road manager and all that and this chap just walked up to him and just tapped him on the shoulder and uh Mr. Poor Guard and hit him with um an envelope on the shoulder and that was the rip for the old uh the bank started of the bankruptcy and uh but he went and did he did a brilliant show that night.
>> True to character, Glitter even made light of the amount he'd lost.
This week our castaway is the rock singer Gary Glitter.
>> You had this nasty bit of trouble with the income tax people for a rather a large sum.
>> Well, I mean might seem a large sum. I think it was £180,000.
>> It does seem a reasonable sum. Yeah, >> but you know, with a couple of hit records, it's really a day's wages, doesn't it?
>> Is it?
>> Yeah. Oh, yes.
>> Glitter even made an event of his enforced wardrobe sale. I lost a lot of my clothes, you know, having gone bankrupt and everything. I had to auction them off at Harrods. Um, but we're thinking of making that a sort of an annual event in the social calendar.
Um, because there's no point. Now, that's lovely. What do you think of that? That is really beautiful. He became bankrupt in 80 1980 and uh he had an auction in Harrods. Then the revenue thought that he had to sell his beautiful suits. I couldn't believe I paid only £40 for this. This was the leader of the gang suit. It's my prize, momento. I could never I can never be apart from this now.
>> Celebrity and fame, the very thing Glitter had worked so hard to achieve had slipped out of his grasp. He retreated into drugs and booze. But the showman in Glitter somehow refused to die.
So after a typically flamboyant stint in the rocky horror show abroad, Glitter came back to try and resurrect his crumbling career, he decided to employ the glitter formula in a circus act.
>> They said, "Would I be interested in doing circus?" Because apparently they said to my manager that I was the only person that they knew that was capable of having that sort of charisma.
We'll see. We rehearsed uh in this great big sort of room with bales of hay and cages all around full of elephants and lions and you know they used to join in while we were rehearsing and they were quite loud as well. They had a motorbike on a high wire and Gary was on a a thing hanging down below with a seat on and the bike went right up into the air and got stuck at the top of the rope and they were all shouting what are we what are we going to do? What are we going to do? you know. So I said, well, I said, why don't we call the AA?
>> Glitter's rock and roll dreams had turned into pantomime.
As he tried to rediscover public favor, a down andout glitter was adopted by the Browns, a family from the West Country.
>> When he came to stay with us, he was bankrupt, which is why he lived with us.
He had his own room. Um, my father used to cher him around so that people still thought that he had money. I I think they treated him like as a son really like uh you know he I think he became a part of their family. I think the family that he never had.
>> The youngest member of the Brown household Allison was in awe of Glitter.
The starruck young teenager was suddenly living with a man she had only known as a face on a poster on her bedroom wall.
>> She had eyid eyes Gary for years. I went abroad to live and when I was going on the airplane she gave me a little drawing saying I love you love me in match stick men in things because he was always her idol from a very very early age.
>> By the time Allison was 18 years old it was no secret she was sleeping with glitter.
They moved in together and Allison proved a calming influence on the wild man of Glam Rock.
>> He had his his little cottage down there and he was living with Allison.
He'd become a Buddhist, a vegetarian, non-drinking, non-smoking, no drugs, running three miles every morning before breakfast, taking the dog for walks, and was wholly accepted within the community of that village.
>> Attained Gary Glitter was ready to go back to work.
>> We got him a new accountant.
Um and uh then we cleared up his tax affairs and we made a settlement. We got him discharged for that. We found his old catalog and got that remarketed. And to his credit um Gary got his life together as well. Started getting to trim and um it came together.
>> Dusting off the image which had served him so well only a decade ago. The resurrected Gary Glitter was welcomed into the university circuit.
>> It would prove the beginning of an extraordinary comeback. His new audience gave him an appropriate welcome.
>> If they liked you in those in those days, they used to spit and gobb all over you. Oh, it's terrible. Anyway, Gaddy comes rolling down the steps after the clothes close clothes close. Rolling down and the stage is like completely slime. You know what I mean? And he just slides right into the audience.
>> We had no from a business side, we never had any problems with him at all.
>> It's good business.
>> Good business. Got better each year. I mean, yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. and um became a cult and uh you know he he just went out there and camped it up and everyone loved him.
>> Glitter was back. But as he attempted to ease his way into the public heart, the real Gary Glitter had never gone away.
Justine Akroyd, abused by Gary Glitter 6 years ago, was now 14. Over the years, she'd struggled to block out the memory of that night. her next meeting with Glitter would bring it all flooding back. She was persuaded to help Glitter's daughter clean up his London flat.
He told me to sit down next to Uncle Gary and I still had this doubt in my mind that that thing 6 years ago hadn't happened anyway.
And I sat down, you know, he said he said, um, he said, "Do you remember what I did to you?"
And then it all just everything caved in because it I just realized that he had remembered what he'd done. It had really happened and he knew that it had happened.
And then he asked me if I'd enjoyed it and um suggested we go through to the bathroom cuz there was a lock on the door. And I knew at 14 years old that I could say no and I did. and I got up and I walked out of the room.
I didn't really want to hurt my mom. Um, and I knew it would hurt her, but I just had to tell her. Um, I remember where we were in the house when I told her, you know, it's um she was she was so sorry that she hadn't been there and that she didn't know before.
And um she just held me and I knew she believed me from from the minute I told her.
And and I felt like a big big relief then that I' I'd handed I had handed it over to somebody else.
>> Justine was so distressed her mother went immediately to see the family doctor.
The advice was quite naive at the time and we were advised to just get on and that she'd be there to support me and help me through and help me to get over it and make sure I wasn't in any vulnerable positions anymore. And um so on that advice, that's what we did.
I think it might be different now.
The police were not contacted, but this was the early 1980s, a decade when the silence surrounding child abuse would be broken.
Glitter's dark secret wasn't out yet, but it was just a matter of time.
By the early 1990s, Gary Glitter was back and could be seen playing the bigger and more lucrative stadiums. His over-the-top performances captivated a new generation of fans unaware of his dark secret. A hit single Rock and Roll Christmas earned him a triumphant return to Top of the Pops.
you were meeting new fans who were latching on to him for the first time. I was really jealous because they were uh discovering Gary for the first time.
When you discover something for the first time, it's extra special. You know, the office party. Uh they would congregate. They all come to see Gary Glitter and all all be dressed up in silver boxes. You just couldn't believe it that he's come all the way through and and get his orges back again. And but he was like a rock and roll pantoime. Christmas Pantomite through the '90s. Oh, it was great. It was excellent.
Yeah, he uh he seemed to just be going from strength to strength.
>> When you played as many comebacks as Gary Glitter, isn't it nice to know you can always come back to the great >> He was always on programs and adverts, you know, the the jokey pop star who kept making comebacks and everyone still seemed to love him.
I remember him um appearing on Jim Fix It. I just got this sinking feeling and and I wanted to tell Jim Fix It so he could fix it for me to tell people what a monster this man was and how he'd hurt me.
>> How much was he making you? Oh well with us uh he was pushing on in 1990 he was hitting 400,000 500,000 in the '90s >> just through two months work.
>> Yes. Everyone made money and the public were happy you know >> but then in 1992 Glitter's private life shattered. His 12-year relationship with Allison Brown, credited with helping him make his comeback, had broken down. She went to the tabloids, alleging underage sex. The revelation shocked her family.
He betrayed everyone. He let the complete family down. Someone that we welcomed, took abroad on holiday, did things to you. It's just words can't describe how the family feel about what he's done to us.
Allison's and Glitter's relationship had started when he took her to one of his performances at the Webbington Hotel.
Gary took Allison up there so that she could watch the matinea performance. And whilst they were up there, he decided that he'd masturbate. So he masturbated in front of Allison and Gary told her to keep it secret. Don't tell anyone about this.
In private he liked her to wear a school uniform to see her in it and school tie the pill dress, the hat and everything for his own personal quirks. Allison was a virgin. She'd been to boarding school.
She wasn't worldlywide. She wasn't 18, 19. She was a little girl who didn't know what was going on.
Glitter's opportunism stretched to taking Allison away for a weekend party at his friends who also had a young daughter.
>> The understanding was that she would be staying with the young girl in her bedroom. There wasn't any room there.
So, she ended up sleeping with Gary and he took her virginity there.
How old was she?
>> 14.
>> Glitter denied Allison's claims of underage sex, and his career seemed unaffected.
But his secret was still casting its shadow over Justine Akroyd's life. Now in her late teens, she was still caught in glitter's web of abuse.
>> I went down to five and a half stone um at my worst. Uh I I don't know. I think that when someone gets anorexia, it's a sequence of events. And I I certainly feel that what happened to me did bear weight on um on me getting anorexia cuz I I wanted to remain, you know, small and sort of unattractive and boylike, I suppose. And um I succeeded. Um for a while I you know people were very worried and they wanted to admit me to hospital.
>> So no I I I had no no boyfriends in my teenage years.
>> You put that down to >> fear of physical contact um intimacy.
>> By the mid '90s the comeback king of glam had become a very British icon.
A pantoime version of Elvis Presley, maybe a rock and roll equivalent of a saucy postcard, certainly.
But crucially, Glitter had now become respectable >> and and their moms and dads.
>> You become an institution. That's what's happened. You become an in I said you become an institution, Gary.
>> Oh, yes, that's right.
>> On chat shows, Glitter employed a confessional style to help win that respectability.
>> How long were you into the drunk drink?
too long really. During that period of time, I felt like I'd been raped or or like I'd been abused, you know, and I had, of course, I'd raped myself. I'd abused myself so badly. All I wanted to do was to get in a shower and wash and I clean myself. I mean, I was doing like a bottle of tequila before breakfast and a gram of Coke before lunch.
>> But on the other hand, look, you've come through it. Well, it's good to see you.
>> Abuse and cleansing. It's a cruel irony that Glitter portrayed himself as the victim to gain public sympathy, but it worked.
>> He ceased to be a threat and became a lovable darling. And the moms and dads partly remembered him from first time around, but also enjoyed the fact that that he was clowning it up and uh going over the top with it.
Such was the public trust in Gary Glitter that he even made an appearance on the children in need appeal.
>> We're going to take you on a ride through the time tunnel when pop songs were innocent and wholesome and had memorable lyrics like do you want to touch me there? Yeah. Children in need salute to the king of glam rock, Mr. Gary Glitter.
>> Glitter's fame even bought him a ticket into the heart of the establishment.
Well, as he matured and he stabilized, he got more and more sophisticated, you know, and so socially um he was, you know, in the Belgravia, Mayfair, you know, uh he was very very acceptable dinner parties and he was very very well connected socially, >> became part of the establishment almost.
>> He did. He was very good and he knew the game. He knew the game.
>> Good night.
>> Okay, we're switching off now. Good morning.
>> The 18th of November, 1997, and the scandal broke. Glitter had taken his broken computer to be repaired at a high street store. There, staff discovered images of child pornography on his hard disk. Paul Gad, aka Gary Glitter, was arrested and charged. A public examination of the real Gary Glitter started >> today. The media descended on the sleepy Somerset village where the singer lived.
The press have been camped outside the pop star's house here at Wedmore all day, but the curtains are closed and there's been no sign of the singer.
>> Gary's all right. He's always been very nice here to people and very friendly.
You know, show business. You always get this, don't you? Wherever you go.
I think he's uh innocent or proven guilty.
>> The King of Glam now faced the biggest fight of his career.
>> This time it would be played out on a legal stage.
>> Victory for Glitter meant keeping his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Defeat, public revulsion.
When I first heard about the allegations against him, um, it was like being hit by a 40ft juggernaut.
I just couldn't believe what I was reading in front of me. I always thought, you know, they got the wrong man because you you do, don't you? You always give the benefit of the doubt to people that you like and love.
Glitter here on stage in what would prove his last tour remained defiant despite the charges.
>> I'm proud of the way you came out tonight. I'm proud of the way you keep faith.
>> When I heard about the pornography, um I was just really angry because it just became instantly clear to me that this had never ever stopped.
it was still his thing. Um, all these years later, he was still doing what he had always done. I felt like this is it.
People will know and um, maybe there is a chance that I might be believed.
>> At last, Glitter's terrible secret came back to haunt him. His arrest led to other charges. Gary Glitter is charged with a string of sex offenses dating back to 1975 involving a girl aged under 13 and another aged under 16. There are five counts of indecent assault and four of another serious sexual assault.
>> 22 years after it took place, Glitter was charged with sexual offenses against Justine Akroyd when she was only 8 years old. But at the first legal hurdle, the case fell down. The magistrate's court ruled there had been too long a delay in bringing the charges to ensure a fair trial.
I was devastated because there's this protective window of time set in place by the legal system. So all the time that that clock is ticking, a child abuser is getting safer and safer. And it just seems so wrong that that that's the case.
>> But Allison Brown, Glitter's lover for 12 years, would have her day in court.
Glitter pleaded not guilty to underage sex offenses. At the trial, it emerged Allison had done a deal with a tabloid newspaper for her story. In his summing up, the judge criticized the deal and Glitter was found not guilty. All she wanted was the reason why and him to tell the truth. But throughout the court case, Gary didn't say a word. He didn't defend himself once nothing was said.
It looked like Glitter had won. But he still faced charges of possessing child pornography on his computer.
Police had found 4,000 images, too many to have got there by accident.
They included sedo masochism and buggery involving children as young as two. In court, 54 sample charges were read out.
Glitter pleaded guilty to each one.
It's just not that sensible nowadays, you know, or any day in actual fact, but this current climate with so much of it around that, you know, that it's just it's just taboo.
>> Glitter was led away to prison to serve his 4month sentence. There he was stripped of all that had made him Gary Glitter. His wig, his outlandish clothing, and his status as a very British rock and roll icon. His celebrity, four decades in the making, was taken away.
>> After 40 years, I don't think I have two or three friends in the business.
>> Oh, yes. She's got none now cuz he's a leper.
>> The king of Glam Rock was truly dead.
And there stood the real naked Gary Glitter, a child who had dreamed of fame and become the most famous pervert in Britain. I know what he did and I know what he's capable of. And I'm not a frightened little girl anymore that can't can't tell anybody.
I can tell people and um that's what I'm doing. What is the real Gary Griffith for you?
>> A child abuser, a a monster who hurts children, hurts little girls in his case, little girls.
And for his own gratification, Heat. Heat.
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