Savile's victims as young as 8

The report into British broadcaster Jimmy Savile's sexual offending revealed details of assaults on children on BBC premises.

One of Jimmy Savile's victims was a 12-year-old girl from Scotland who persuaded her aunt to take her to see Top of the Pops.

The girl had travelled to London to visit the relative, who agreed to accompany her to the studios in December 1973.

She and a 10-year-old boy ended up being taken to a dressing room to meet Savile, who still had on the Womble costume he had worn to present the show.

The woman, who now lives abroad, told the review that after chatting for around 15 minutes Savile raped the boy before sexually assaulting her.

Afterwards the presenter put an arm round each of them and told them that what had happened was a "secret".

The victim said she remembers walking to the Tube station and telling her aunt they had seen Slade and had had pop and biscuits with Savile.

The report said: "She did not tell anyone what had happened.

"She thought it was her fault and that she might go to hell for what she had done."

The woman came forward after seeing a newspaper advertisement placed by a firm of solicitors, inviting victims of Savile to make contact.

The man who had been in Savile's dressing room with her had instructed the same firm and one testimony supported the other, with Dame Janet Smith saying "I accept their accounts as true."

Another of Savile's victims was "groomed" by a scene painter at the BBC who took her on trips to Television Centre where she says she was abused by around 30 different men - including the presenter.

Leisha Brookes, who has waived her right to anonymity, said the scene painter would take her on monthly trips to the corporation.

Smith's report states: "He would take her to different rooms where she would meet a man and he would tell her to 'sit on Uncle so and so's knee' or he would say that he had to go and do something and 'Uncle so and so' would look after her.

"Some of these men were people whom she had seen on television but most of them she did not recognise.

"She said that most of these men (although not all) touched her (or hurt her as she put it).

"In all she estimates that she was abused by about 30 different men. One of the men who abused her was Savile. She recognised him because she used to watch Jim'll Fix It. He promised to show her his big chair, although he never did."

She was 11 years old when the abuse took place.


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Source: AAP



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