Jimmy Savile... who is he?

[max_tranmere]

The attacks on the BBC by other broadcasters seem to show little chance of slowing down and will probably continue until the Director General resigns. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in the next week or two. Have you noticed how this story pushed the search for the 5 year old girl in Wales not only off the headlines but it has now become a non-story. We've heard nothing about it for weeks. It's all Savile, Savile, Savile...

[max_tranmere]

"I also think there's something about Murdoch orchestrating this war against the BBC as payback for the Leveson enquiry."

There could be some truth in that. Interesting point.

[max_tranmere]

On the subject of Bill Wyman and Mandy Smith, as far as I recall the reason the whole thing never got to Court was because her and her family were not keen to press charges over it. Her mother, rather bizarrely, dated Bill Wyman's son for a few years. This meant that Wyman's son would have become his (Wyman's) step-father-in-law had the two married, and Wyman's son would have been referring to his own dad as his step-son-in-law. All rather odd. I remember Mandy Smith's sister, Nicola Smith, traded off what had happened and became a star in her own right - one of those 'famous for being famous' non-entities that gets features about their private life in Hello magazine exclusives and so on. She traded off it, made money and got fame, for years. So in that sense Mandy Smith's family more or less supported what had happened with regard to Bill and Mandy because to enjoy the spoils of something serves as an endorsement of it. Nicola Smith would not have become the 'star' she did in the trash mags without it. Mandy also became a manufactured pop star and enjoyed a 'singing' career off of it all.

Bill Wyman started dating Mandy Smith when she was 13 (I remember that specifically) and he first bedded her aged 14. He used to pick her up from school in his car. Everything I've just typed has been from memory but I just looked up the year the two were born to work out how old he was when was 13 - he was born in 1936 and she in 1970. This means when she was 13 he was 47! A 48 year old man, who has slept with literally thousands of women, beds a 14 year old girl. Very bad indeed. It's amazing how the family didn't take action, but they saw ? signs and thought "lets cash-in instead!" Bill Wyman was interviewed in Q Magazine some years later in that 'Cash for questions' feature the Magazine used to do. People would write in with a question for a star and get ?25.00 if their question was featured. Many were about the Mandy Smith thing. Wyman said in the interview "I didn't want to get in to this but I will. Everyone around her made money off what happened, I however got vilified when all I tried to do was care for her - and I was the only one who did care for her". He may have cared for her but he also slept with an underage girl and that makes him a bad guy.

[RoddersUK]

So when has it been announced that Freddy Starr is to be charged? I have just read that the gendarmes have no plans to question him, let alone charge him.
Though they could charge him with being an unfunny irritating bastard I suppose.

[max_tranmere]

I'm not sure if he is being charged but he said the whole thing is so traumatising that he has asked for the words "I told you I was innocent" to be put on his headstone if the whole affair kills him. This might sound a bit comical, like when Spike Milligan asked for something similar ("I told you I was ill") to be put on his headstone, but Freddie Starr is deadly serious. How the hell they could have a Court case over this I don't know, there is no evidence so it is his words against the woman's. She claims that when she was 14, nearly 40 years ago, he groped her. She has even said in an interview that he probably did it playfully and didn't mean anything by it. This is not to condone such behaviour by any means, but they have basically had 'the Court case' already because the only things that could be discussed there have already been aired. She has said what supposedly happened. He has denied it. What it there to discuss? They may aswell either bang him up now or forget about the whole thing.

[frankthring]

I agree with you Max, the whole thing has become a media circus. No one
seems to be saying "Hey, these things happened thirty and forty years ago.
We need to treat all this "evidence" very very carefully".
It also reminds me of a modern day version of the Salem Witch Trials of the
1600s when mass hysteria takes over and commonsense, even from the
authorities, is lost....or the McCarthy witch hunts in 1950s America.
The principal person - Saville - is long dead. He cannot in any way defend
himself and I am sure some of what is being said now would fall away if he
had an opportunity to refute charges.
When publicist Max Clifford, in a recent TV interview, tried to point out how
worried many rocks stars of the 60s and 70s are that their saucy
shenanigans with groupies and teen fans in the Swinging Sixties might now
be used to tar them as paedophiles, a PC correct social worker in The
Guardian replied that these rock stars should have asked to see the girls
passports to check their ages before indulging in sex (quite the dumbest
thing I have heard in years).
I am also worried about what the whole Saville case says about modern
Britain. Every country has its social obsession; with America it is abortion,
which is utterly non-controversial among other developed countries. In
Britain society has been conditioned to see paedophilia peeping out from
every street and every doorway (wheras in most other countries it is not a
major media concern).

[one eyed jack]

Frank wrote:

a PC correct social worker in The
Guardian replied that these rock stars should have asked to see the girls
passports to check their ages before indulging in sex (quite the dumbest
thing I have heard in years)

Thanks to Traci Lords shenanigans over 25 years ago that us pornogrpahers were wise to apply this with the requirements of the 2257....Ive even been cross referenced at the BBFC about a certain model...So , maybe not have to see their passports but at least think with their brains before they stick their dicks in....Theres no sympathy from me here and nor did I sympathise with the likes of R Kelly...Ive been in that situation myself and the dead give aways were teeth braces and girly giggles. Even better was in pubs when id had to prove a girls age.

A puff of smoke later I was gone. No dna in that girl nor even a peck on the cheek to even say I was there...Mind you I was in my mid 20's but thats no excuse. These young girls look like kids to me and they sound like it too twiddling on their phones playing Angry Birds...and texting...OMG the texting! The constant self obsession with pictures. Theyre kids playing at being women and if blokes are dumb enough to fall for that then they should pay the price for doing so.

ZERO sympthathy and I've been there.

[David Johnson]

Yes, apparently 69 year old Freddie Starr has been having heart palpitations since the allegations were made public, according to his 34 year old fiancee.

I guess the allegations could be one factor....whilst having a fiancee 35 years younger than him might be another !wink!

[william]

Probably the same age difference as what it was when he was with Jimmy....

[Arginald Valleywater]

In theory this could get worse. An ex colleague of mine has just been blasted on Facebook by her friends for uploading a photo of her 12 yo daughter dressed in suspenders and going to a Halloween party over the weekend. Asking for it doesn't even come close and it was her mother's lingerie she was wearing...a little bit of careful parenting might make the situation a bit more difficult for the paedophiles out there.