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Noel Clarke

I'm the OP who started this thread.

One of the things that shocked me most, at least initially, was the way this story was handled by ITV News. I'd watched episode 4 of Viewpoint, followed immediately by ITV News at Ten. Tom Bradby's opening words were along the lines of "Good evening, anyone who's just been watching Viewpoint will be interested in an item later in our bulletin" (or words to that effect). "Blimey" I thought, "headlines on News at Ten? He's had an accident, he's dead, he's ill". But no, it was a report based on a second hand unverified story from another news organisation. "Blimey" I thought (again) "that's crappy and unethical handling by a supposedly flagship news organisation, they could have done that better". And apparently on the strength of this piece of unverified news it was announced in the same bulletin that episode 5 of Viewpoint would not be aired. I thought that was unnecessarily preemptive, and hypocritical seeing as it was left on "Catch Up" so we could all still watch it.

Clearly the severity of the accusations now emerging mean they need investigating, and I will await the outcome before drawing further conclusions. In one sense what happens now is an irrelevance.

I shan't bother with episode five. I've now decided it wasn't very good, like most TV drama.
 
These things are happening regularly. For every Weinstein, there’s a Geoffrey Rush or Ed Westwick where charges were dropped or cases were won.
 
Saville was never charged with anything as far as I can recall. By the logic of some on here he is completely innocent then?

Harassment & bullying often go uncharged for many reasons; the nature of the offences & disparity of power often ensure this. We had a similar line of responses on here re the Salmond case.

It is the 21st century, perhaps a few need to go on a D&I course?
 
Saville was never charged with anything as far as I can recall. By the logic of some on here he is completely innocent then?

Harassment & bullying often go uncharged for many reasons; the nature of the offences & disparity of power often ensure this. We had a similar line of responses on here re the Salmond case.

It is the 21st century, perhaps a few need to go on a D&I course?

Sometimes it’s just not enough evidence, variability of witness statements or how long ago the events happened.

Could you imagine being innocent and having these allegations? It would destroy life.
You are certainly spot on about bullying etc. Certain high profile cases appeared less than rigorously checked and this can be tantamount to acceptance.
 
Sometimes it’s just not enough evidence, variability of witness statements or how long ago the events happened.

Could you imagine being innocent and having these allegations? It would destroy life.
You are certainly spot on about bullying etc. Certain high profile cases appeared less than rigorously checked and this can be tantamount to acceptance.
But you cannot have it both ways. Courts don’t always get the right outcome due to the burden of proof.

Noel Clark is an interesting one, he obviously has behaved very badly, often allegations only come to light when people are able to come forward (they have some power after the event). The ‘casting couch’ is still ‘a thing’ & this is shameful.

I’m afraid it comes down to blokes (it nearly always is) behaving like arseholes.
 
Saville was never charged with anything as far as I can recall. By the logic of some on here he is completely innocent then?

Harassment & bullying often go uncharged for many reasons; the nature of the offences & disparity of power often ensure this. We had a similar line of responses on here re the Salmond case.

It is the 21st century, perhaps a few need to go on a D&I course?
I think part of the problem was that Saville was dead by the time there was sufficient evidence that would have enabled prosecutions, though why it took so long to gather the evidence is another issue.
 
I’ve read reports that the Police were aware of Saviles actions many years back, perhaps he was protected?
 
Think it was more that he hid in plain sight.

He raised millions for Stoke manderville hospital and was a papal knight too so anyone accusing him would have been under severe pressure.

Obviously people knew he was dodgy but back then kids were often ignored by adults, the sexual abuse was quite obviously endemic in Uk society and still is sadly.
 
There's a thin line between 'loveable eccentric' and 'perverted weirdo'. It's easy to loathe Savile because he was just a terminally naff ex-DJ who did lots of work for charity. But suppose he was a respected artist, with a great back-catalogue? At what point do past misdeeds outweigh artistic merit?
 
I think part of the problem was that Saville was dead by the time there was sufficient evidence that would have enabled prosecutions, though why it took so long to gather the evidence is another issue.

There was awareness of what Saville was up to well before he died (John Lydon said as much in the late 70s on national television). One Kier Starmer as Director of Public Prosecutions stopped him being prosecuted, claiming insufficient evidence if memory serves. We will never know for sure if prosecuting and making it public would have caused more of his victims to come forward while he was still alive.
 
There was awareness of what Saville was up to well before he died (John Lydon said as much in the late 70s on national television). One Kier Starmer as Director of Public Prosecutions stopped him being prosecuted, claiming insufficient evidence if memory serves. We will never know for sure if prosecuting and making it public would have caused more of his victims to come forward while he was still alive.

I never really followed the Saville thing after it all blew up but one thing really hit me and that was the abuse by Saville of a paraplegic victim who was only about 13 at the time of the abuse, she was from Glasgow I recall, the abuse occurred in SM hospital, horrific.
 
People were scared of him & his influence
He was a manipulator and gave an angelic impression to the heads of institutions that he was a saint and benefactor.
Years after his death, many of his influential acquaintances said they never saw the bad side of him.
So not much hope for the powerless to be heard.
 
People were scared of him & his influence. Pretty obvious really.

Just read a couple of articles regarding one of the NHS reports into the Saville case and a nurse was quoted as saying that someone of Saville's description was reported to have been in the mortuary in 1954.

"The report records details of six victims and two witnesses. A former nurse, quoted in the report, said she was warned about the activities of someone she believed to have been Savile in the mortuary as long ago as 1954."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28021488

Saville's brother was also accused of sexual abuse BTW.

"A separate investigation found that Savile’s older brother, Johnny Savile, was the subject of seven sexual assault allegations by women – five of whom were patients – at Springfield hospital in south-west London between 1978 and 1980."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/26/jimmy-savile-abuse-stoke-mandeville-hospital-inquiry
 


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