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Subscribe to RSSThe BBC current affairs program "Newsnight" on Friday night aired allegations that a senior Conservative politician from the Margaret Thatcher era had sexually abused boys in the 1970s and 1990s as part of a scandal involving children's homes in North Wales.
But the BBC stopped short of naming the politician, bringing a torrent of tweets criticizing its report.
Earlier Friday, The Telegraph newspaper reported that former Newsnight presenter Michael Crick tweeted: "'Senior political figure' due to be accused tonight by BBC of being paedophile denies allegations + tells me he'll issue libel writ agst BBC."
A subsequent tweet read: "The senior political figure due to be accused paedophile activity by BBC tonight tells me that he still hasn't heard from them for response."
In a later post on its website, the BBC said the allegations arose from a scandal alleging child sexual abuse at children's homes in North Wales in the 1970s and 1980s that started coming to light in the early 1990s. The allegations led to investigations and a government-ordered inquiry, the 2000 Waterhouse Tribunal.
In the Newsnight segment, a man said he had been repeatedly abused by the politician in the late 1970s. Steve Messham claimed that he had been abused "more than a dozen times" and that when he finally went to the police, "I was called a liar." He called for a new investigation.
Newsnight said a man claiming that he also had been abused by the politician had been interviewed for BBC radio in 2000. Newsnight said it had not been able to find the man for its report, but it provided an unusual dramatization of the man's radio interview.
According to the dramatization, the man said he had gone to North Wales police but had been told there wasn't enough evidence.
British comic Freddie Starr arrested in Savile abuse case
Police believe former TV star Jimmy Savile, a national icon, may have been one of Britain's worst pedophile offenders. Some of Savile's alleged 300 victims had appeared on his TV shows. NBC's Keir Simmons reports.
On Thursday, British police arrested comedian Freddie Starr as part of an investigation triggered by allegations that the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile sexually abused hundreds of children, according to media reports.
The allegations have shaken Britain's state-funded broadcaster, with hundreds of people now coming forward to report abuse dating back over several decades by Savile, a household name in Britain.
Lawyers representing some of the victims have said their clients indicated an organized pedophile ring involving celebrities existed at the BBC during the height of Savile's fame in the 1970s and 1980s.
'A steep fall' for BBC as child sex abuse scandal rocks the UK
On Sunday, police arrested glam rock singer and convicted sex offender Gary Glitter, born Paul Gadd, as part of the Savile investigation. He was released on bail.
BBC Director General George Entwistle and his predecessor, Mark Thompson, incoming chief executive officer of the New York Times Co., have come under heavy criticism for their handling of suspicions about Savile.
A BBC investigation into Savile was dropped last year, when Thompson was at the helm. It took a rival network, ITV, to uncover the scandal. Thompson has said he did not know about the program's investigation and had no involvement in the decision to axe the report.
It’s still not clear why the well-regarded show "Newsnight" dropped the investigation, and there is no suggestion that either Thompson or Entwistle were involved in a cover up. But, on top of the BBC’s failure to stop Savile, its shelving of his investigation has shocked the UK. The BBC’s journalism is fiercely independent; its own journalists have done much to make the Savile story headline news, but many of the questions are about the competency of BBC's management rather than individual reporters and producers.
NBC's Keir Simmons and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
First...yaay Me! Butters, you're the greatest!
yaay, butters, congratulations, but if this thread gets popular, your comment will also be the first to be collapsed.
How does this sort of thing go one, for decades, with no public outcry?
Somebody must have known something. As the Jerry Sandusky case shows these types of crimes never remain a complete secret.
Pedophilia is a lot more common than any of the "normal" people ever wanted to believe. Now that civilization has awoke, these people are answering for there crimes. It's a revelation of the internet, I think. People are just smarter these days, in those ways.
This Savile scandal is much bigger than the Michael Jackson frame up. A lot more witnesses are involved.
No kidding though, I grew up in a boarding school in England back in late 60's to early 70's and pedophiles were common. And commonly covered up. It was a different time back then but now that civilization is smarter, and the kids are older, they are demanding justice. This Savile story is going to be huge and I have little doubt that he is the center of a ring of pedophiles.
There is no comparison of the Saville case to Michael Jackson in the number of witnesses involved. MJ was acquitted and I believe MJ was innocent. Saville on the other hand? Forget it. Too much evidence.
To sit by and do nothing should make a person an accomplice and subject to prosecution. Not sure if this is written in laws but if not it certainly should be. Having been in a British boarding school in the '50's I fully agree with John Barkers comments and I was personally abused by a teacher. I dared not tell my father as I felt he might have killed him and would have gone to prison. PS...he was a friend of the family.
Chris Hanson should take up this story. It's going to be huge. The hammer is finally starting to come down on these perverts.
Jimmy Saville should go down in history as the biggest fraud ever. He robbed children of their innocence and loved no one except himself.
Do you know that Jimmy Saville willed ever last thing to charity and not one penny to any relatives? I think it's around 10 million dollars in cash and possibly other unknown royalties.
The only relatives that will even stand up for Jimmy and deny the pedophilia charges, were not left one penny in his will. And I think there is less than 6 of those people.
Jimmy Savile was one of the most talented confidence artists that ever lived. He even fooled the UK's Royal Family.
johnbarker: No doubt things have changed since the 60's. Child pornography was legal to sell in the red-light district in Amsterdam back then. As for Michael Jackson, where there's smoke there's fire. I think he was acquitted because some of the boys mothers appeared to be looking for cash. Their mercenary interest may be why they let their boys sleep in the same bed with an adult stranger to begin with. The boys were denied justice because of their mother's greed.
It's unfortunate feminists have high-jacked the issue of child sexual abuse and denied, diminished and demeaned the abuse of boys for the past several decades. Had boys been included and encouraged to tell, these kinds of cases we hear about now, Sandusky, the priest scandals etc. would have been found out years ago.
Also, most of Chris Hansen's sensational exploits were thrown out as entrapment.
RevSpinnaker, You have your facts wrong concerning Michael Jackson. MJ was persecuted by a couple of relatives of the children, who wanted money, he was not acquitted due to that fact. In the last case, the DA took it up and would not settle out of court. He was found not guilty, there was no out of court settlement.
There is no evidence that MJ was a pedophile except for the false testimony of a couple of children who were coached by their relatives. He was considered an easy target because he had settled out of court on a previous complaint that was also probably an extortion scheme.
MJ was an eccentric guy with eccentric habits of hanging out with children, but there is no evidence he was ever a pedophile.
Regarding the "feminists at fault" for ignoring pedophiles who prey on boys, that's also mislead. Pedophilia is not gender or culturally biased. Girls get abused just as much as boys by both adult sexes. And both sexes have been long guilty for covering it up or ignoring it, with a great deal of naivety in most cases.
Figures it would be a crook from the Prime Sinister's outfit, they were all criminal.
Assailant a Muslim ???Wait a Minute he is NOT a Muslim but a nut from amongst us??? Wow he does NOT read quran presumably a book of hatred but is a bible reader ??? he is NOT a follower of Muhammad but follows Jesus?? and is NOT from Iran Iraq ,Afghanistan or Pakistan?? but from within our great nation .....Na its an isolated case but their isolated nutcases are responsibilty of every freakin muslim but no here we are not responsible for our nutcases, its that individual,s responsibilty ....... we are peace loving hypocrites and religious bigots. if one of the crazy mentally challenged does it from amongst muslims we hold them collectively repsonsible. all speech is hate speech by their ministers but hey we call our hate preachers and war mongerers as peace trumpeteers and isolate our crazies pedophiles or abusers as not from amongst us. Free speech (no matter how much we put them down or pun their prophet) and Freedom is our call and Free Speech by them is hate speech . If anything wrong happens automatically like a knee jerk we blame their book and prophet and hold them ALL accountable for their 1.
If I'm suppose to be shocked it's not working.
Well, we have Barney Frank, don't we.
I wonder if the politician is catholic.
The U.K. is really showing their true colors this year.
Really ShayT35?
And what might they be?
Pedophilia is not restricted to the UK; nor is stupidity, apparently.
Well, I guess the English figured that seeing how the Catholic Church has a limited presents in the Country that they would make up for their part of the the excesses with young boys by turning it over to the politicos to shore up the loose ends. My understand of all this is that they had even arrested Gary Glitter AGAIN for being part of this mess; and me all the time thinking that he was still doing time in Vietnam for similar crimes against humanity???? You go figure??