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#Saville Report
stairnaheireann · 2 months
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#OTD in 1972 – In what is to become known as Bloody Sunday, the British Army kills 13 civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside district of Derry. A 14th marcher later dies of his injuries.
Thirteen people were shot and killed when British paratroopers opened fire on a crowd of civilians in Derry. Fourteen others were wounded, one later died. The marchers had been campaigning for equal rights such as one man, one vote. Despite initial attempts by British authorities to justify the shootings including a rushed report by Lord Widgery exonerating the troops, the Saville Report which…
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kanerallels · 2 months
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My villain origin story is whenever my most recent favorite ship doesn't fit as a Tangled au
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speakspeak · 2 years
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The Snob Report shared a post on Instagram:
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”
– Douglas Adams 
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stereax · 3 months
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invisibleicewands · 2 months
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Campaign to devolve the Crown Estate to Wales launched
Siarter Cartrefi, in partnership with Beth Winter MP and Liz Saville Roberts MP, will be holding an open meeting, with the support of Michael Sheen, to launch a new campaign focused on devolving the Crown Estate to Wales.
Beth Winter and Liz Saville Roberts will give an update on the Cross Party Bill in Parliament to Devolve the Crown Rights and a short video message of support from Michael Sheen will be screened, before opening up to a discussion on the future of the campaign. The meeting will take place online on 30 January at 7pm.
This event aims to pull together individuals and organisations in a sustained joint campaign that will demand the devolution of the Crown Estate with the profits directed into a Sovereign Wealth Fund, managed by the Welsh Government, for community benefit.
Siarter Cartrefi, the Welsh Housing Justice Charter, is a grassroots organisation that brings together community activists from across Wales, collaborating with third sector, campaign organisations, Welsh Government and others.
In the spring of last year, Siarter Cartrefi co-produced Ten Recommendations to the Welsh Government via a community consultation and Emergency Housing Conference, devolving the Crown Estate was one of them, and was seen as a way to secure a more sustainable future for Welsh communities.
The Crown Estate is a collection of land and assets owned by the Crown, but managed by an independent trust. Its profits are funnelled into the UK Treasury, and 25% of revenues into the Sovereign grant, paid for the upkeep of the royal family.
The Crown Estate in Wales owns about 65% of the Welsh foreshore and riverbed, and more than 50,000 acres of land. In 2020-21, the value of the estate went from £96.8m to £603m, reflecting the value of the land for renewable development and other projects.
The estimated annual revenue in 2020-2021 was £8.7m.  As revealed by Cymru Republic, the value in 2023 is £853m.
Since 2016, the Crown Estate has been devolved in Scotland.
Catrin O Neill, founding member of Siarter Cartrefi said: “Devolution of the Crown Estate is a key recommendation from our community consultation work. The people of Wales increasingly see this as a really important cause.
“In the coming weeks we will be working with other campaigners to build momentum behind this fundamental issue. Wales should benefit directly from the profits of renewable energy, and to use this money to address the poverty and inequality in communities across Wales.”
Dylan Lewis Rowlands, member of Siarter Cartrefi said: “Our work on housing in Wales proved that, as the title of our report states, Housing is not just about Housing.
“Housing is a fundamental bedrock of communities, but there are so many inter-related issues that we could not ignore them. We are working on this campaign as a natural next step of our work, and we must win it, for the future of our communities in Wales”
The meeting will take place online, on 30 January at 7pm. Join via the Eventbrite link here.
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ukrfeminism · 5 months
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Named by Rape Crisis Scotland as a “seismic” development in securing justice for survivors, a ruling last week meant the process to establish corroboration in rape and all other crimes involving corroboration has been simplified.
Under the previous rules, corroboration required two forms of evidence that penetration took place, two forms of evidence that consent was not given and two forms of evidence that the accused knew consent was not given. 
The decision from seven appeal court judges earlier this month now means that distress - seen by an independent witness - can corroborate penetration on its own. 
This is the story of the three women who spearheaded that change. 
The ‘sisterhood’ who fought for change to corroboration laws in Scotland 
The story of three women who led the way in changing the law around proving corroboration in Scotland. 
Aged just 14, Emma Bryson reported to the police she had been raped and sexually abused for years as a child.
The attacks happened while she was aged between ten and 13 but police told her they couldn't take her case on.
After high-profile sexual abuse reports against the notorious paedophile Jimmy Savile, Emma, now an adult, decided to report once more in 2016. 
This time it resulted in a year-long investigation but she was told the evidence “did not meet the requirements of corroboration” when it came to sexual penetration.  
“I just came away thinking how is that right?" she told STV News. 
"How is that even possible that you can have all this evidence but it doesn’t tick these really tiny little boxes so they just drop the case?” 
“I really struggled to cope with it,” Emma, who is now 51, told STV News. “That sense of failure, being let down. I put my heart and soul into it and then I didn’t get a prosecution. 
“It was a little while later that I decided I needed to do something to move on.” 
And she did. Not alone but as a team.
Named by Rape Crisis Scotland as a “seismic” development in securing justice for survivors, a ruling last week meant the process to establish corroboration in rape and all other crimes involving corroboration has been simplified.
Under the previous rules, corroboration required two forms of evidence that penetration took place, two forms of evidence that consent was not given and two forms of evidence that the accused knew consent was not given. 
The decision from seven appeal court judges earlier this month now means that distress - seen by an independent witness - can corroborate penetration on its own. 
This is the story of the three women who spearheaded that change. 
In 2018, Emma met Suzy Angus and Shirley Ross through Rape Crisis Scotland and established the Speak Out Survivors group to tackle their shared issues on proving corroboration in child sexual abuse cases. 
Like Emma, both Suzy and Shirley were told their evidence could not be corroborated. All of their cases were dropped and did not make it to court.
“My journey began back in 2006 when I first reported,” Shirley told STV News.
The 45-year-old said: “I was told after hours of interviews that no charges could be brought forward as it was my word against his - 14 years of abuse I was subjected to wasn’t enough. 
"He needed to abuse someone else for my experience to be corroborated. I walked away from the experience more broken than from the abuse I had already experienced.” 
Suzy, who is now 65, said she was raped as a child by a group of adult men. She did not report the attack until decades later.  
Suzy told STV News, “What we all endured was horrific but out of that trauma we found each other and hopefully have made a difference for others.” 
Speaking about the impact of coming together through Speak Out Survivors, Emma said: “It’s been life-changing for all of us. 
"Suzy is calm and measured. I’ve always been a bit more direct and focused. Shirley shoots from the hip. We’ve done this as a team every step of the way. It really is a sisterhood.” 
In 2020, Emma sent a proposal to reform corroboration in Scotland to the Scottish Government and those in the legal community. 
The proposal suggested removing the requirement of corroboration for penetration and introducing corroboration of distress as standard to confirm lack of consent. 
“It was a bit of a slow burner,” Emma said.
“When we first engaged with the legal community, all of them at first were pretty much against any suggestion that corroboration should be reformed or removed so we always knew we were up against it.” 
Eventually, the dial shifted. By the end of 2022, in consultation to their proposal, judges sitting on the Supreme Court agreed that corroboration needed reforming. 
The group also secured a commitment from all political parties that, in theory, they were willing to come together and consider how corroboration could be reformed. And in draft forms of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, the group’s proposal was included. 
“But on the day they published the bill, there was absolutely no mention of corroboration in there at all,” Emma said. “We were absolutely gutted. It felt like we were ghosted by the Scottish Government. They said there was no support but this didn’t make sense to us. We all had to take a bit of time to recoup.” 
However, while this was happening, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC was looking into how corroboration laws could be changed in Scotland. 
Emma said: “We wrote to her in November 2021 about the proposal and she agreed. 
“In the meeting, she was really positive and broadly supportive. She said to us, 'Speak Out Survivors are the way forward' and this was huge.”
Then, finally, the change came. 
Earlier this year, the Lord Advocate urged the Appeal Court to re-examine an Aberdeen High Court case in 2022 (HMA vs CLB), where the verdict was not proven. 
In reference to this case in the recent judgment, it stated: “The jury’s reasonable doubt may have been prompted by…the inability of distress to corroborate penetration”. 
The judges concluded “distress, which is observed by a third party… is capable of corroborating a complainer’s account that she has been raped…The penetration does not require to be corroborated separately". 
The Lord Advocate said this ruling would now be considered by the Crown Office with prosecutors considering what this means for their work in future cases.
The opinions expressed by the court in response to the reference do not affect the original verdict. Instead, it serves to clarify or develop the interpretation of a particular point of law for the benefit of future proceedings.  
Speaking to STV’s Scotland Tonight, defence advocate Thomas Ross KC said: “The biggest change it will make is that in cases, which at the moment cannot be prosecuted because there’s insufficient evidence, [those cases] will be able to be taken forward.
“The big change will not be in relation to cases that we see in court at the moment but it will relate to cases that would never have been taken to court but could now be due to this rule change.” 
Sandy Brindley, from Rape Crisis Scotland, told Scotland Tonight: “Up until now, unless there were other complainers of the same perpetrator, somebody in these circumstances had no possibility of seeing their case in court. 
“So I think in terms of removing a barrier to possible justice and certainly a barrier to cases getting to court this is a really positive development.” 
Yet, some lawyers raised concerns about changing the law, arguing that evidence of distress "tells one nothing about the mode of assault".
In a submission to the court put forward by a legal team led by Roddy Dunlop KC, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, they argued that changing the law would "raise the real possibility of convictions which are simply not merited."
However, Emma, who now works for the police in a victim support unit, said this ruling has been a long time coming. 
“The outcome of that judgment echoes what we put into that proposal we submitted years ago,” Emma said, “The issue with corroboration formerly is that it was misinterpreted, misapplied and inconsistent. We can’t claim all the credit but we made a really significant contribution to changing that dialogue."
The next steps for the group are pressing for a meeting with the Lord Advocate and continuing to support survivors of rape and sexual assault. 
Emma said through tears: “Sorry I’m getting quite emotional but we don’t want survivors to go through what we’ve gone through.
"We hope, in the future, there won’t be any more Emmas, Shirleys and Suzys falling into a black hole.” 
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justforbooks · 2 months
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30 January 1972: Bogside Massacre, or the Bloody Sunday
Bogside Massacre, or the Bloody Sunday, was a massacre on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, when British soldiers shot 26 civilians during a protest march against internment without trial. Fourteen people died: 13 were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers, and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons, and two were run down by army vehicles. All of those shot were Catholics. The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). The soldiers were from the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (“1 Para”), the same regiment implicated in the Ballymurphy massacre several months prior.
Two investigations were held by the British government. The Widgery Tribunal, held in the immediate aftermath, largely cleared the soldiers and British authorities of blame. It described the soldiers’ shooting as “bordering on the reckless”, but accepted their claims that they shot at gunmen and bomb-throwers. The report was widely criticised as a “whitewash”. The Saville Inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 to reinvestigate the incident. Following a 12-year investigation, Saville’s report was made public in 2010 and concluded that the killings were both “unjustified” and “unjustifiable”. It found that all of those shot were unarmed, that none were posing a serious threat, that no bombs were thrown and that soldiers “knowingly put forward false accounts” to justify their firing. The soldiers denied shooting the named victims but also denied shooting anyone by mistake. On publication of the report, the British prime minister David Cameron made a formal apology on behalf of the United Kingdom. Following this, police began a murder investigation into the killings.
Bloody Sunday came to be regarded as one of the most significant events of the Troubles, because many civilians were killed by forces of the state, in full view of the public and the press. It was the highest number of people killed in a single shooting incident during the conflict and is considered the worst mass shooting in Northern Irish history. Bloody Sunday fuelled Catholic and Irish nationalist hostility towards the British Army and worsened the conflict. Support for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) rose, and there was a surge of recruitment into the organisation, especially locally.
In all, 26 people were shot by the paratroopers; 13 died on the day and another died of his injuries four months later. The dead were killed in four main areas: the rubble barricade across Rossville Street, the courtyard car park of Rossville Flats (on the north side of the flats), the courtyard car park of Glenfada Park, and the forecourt of Rossville Flats (on the south side of the flats).
All of the soldiers responsible insisted that they had shot at, and hit, gunmen or bomb-throwers. No soldier said he missed his target and hit someone else by mistake. The Saville Report concluded that all of those shot were unarmed and that none were posing a serious threat. It also concluded that none of the soldiers fired in response to attacks, or threatened attacks, by gunmen or bomb-throwers. No warnings were given before soldiers opened fire.
The casualties are listed in the order in which they were killed.
John ‘Jackie’ Duddy, age 17. Shot as he ran away from soldiers in the car park of Rossville Flats. The bullet struck him in the shoulder and entered his chest. Three witnesses said they saw a soldier take deliberate aim at the youth as he ran. He was the first fatality on Bloody Sunday. Both Saville and Widgery concluded that Duddy was unarmed.
Michael Kelly, age 17. Shot in the stomach while standing at the rubble barricade on Rossville Street. Both Saville and Widgery concluded that Kelly was unarmed. The Saville Inquiry concluded that 'Soldier F’ shot Kelly.
Hugh Gilmour, age 17. Shot as he ran away from soldiers near the rubble barricade. The bullet went through his left elbow and entered his chest. Widgery acknowledged that a photograph taken seconds after Gilmour was hit corroborated witness reports that he was unarmed. The Saville Inquiry concluded that 'Private U’ shot Gilmour.
William Nash, age 19. Shot in the chest at the rubble barricade. Three people were shot while apparently going to his aid, including his father Alexander Nash.
John Young, age 17. Shot in the face at the rubble barricade, apparently while crouching and going to the aid of William Nash.
Michael McDaid, age 20. Shot in the face at the rubble barricade, apparently while crouching and going to the aid of William Nash.
Kevin McElhinney, age 17. Shot from behind, near the rubble barricade, while attempting to crawl to safety.
James 'Jim’ Wray, age 22. Shot in the back while running away from soldiers in Glenfada Park courtyard. He was then shot again in the back as he lay mortally wounded on the ground. Witnesses, who were not called to the Widgery Tribunal, stated that Wray was calling out that he could not move his legs before he was shot the second time. 'Soldier F’ faces charges for his murder.
William McKinney, age 26. Shot in the back as he attempted to flee through Glenfada Park courtyard. 'Soldier F’ faces charges for his murder.
Gerard 'Gerry’ McKinney, age 35. Shot in the chest at Abbey Park. A soldier, identified as 'Private G’, ran through an alleyway from Glenfada Park and shot him from a few yards away. Witnesses said that when he saw the soldier, McKinney stopped and held up his arms, shouting “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”, before being shot. The bullet apparently went through his body and struck Gerard Donaghy behind him.
Gerard 'Gerry’ Donaghy, age 17. Shot in the stomach at Abbey Park while standing behind Gerard McKinney. Both were apparently struck by the same bullet. Bystanders brought Donaghy to a nearby house. A doctor examined him, and his pockets were searched for identification. Two bystanders then attempted to drive Donaghy to hospital, but the car was stopped at an Army checkpoint. They were ordered to leave the car and a soldier drove the vehicle to a Regimental Aid Post, where an Army medical officer pronounced Donaghy dead. Shortly after, soldiers found four nail bombs in his pockets. The civilians who searched him, the soldier who drove him to the Army post, and the Army medical officer, all said that they did not see any bombs. This led to claims that soldiers planted the bombs on Donaghy to justify the killings.
Patrick Doherty, age 31. Shot from behind while attempting to crawl to safety in the forecourt of Rossville Flats. The Saville Inquiry concluded that he was shot by 'Soldier F’, who came out of Glenfada Park. Doherty was photographed, moments before and after he died, by French journalist Gilles Peress. Despite testimony from 'Soldier F’ that he had shot a man holding a pistol, Widgery acknowledged that the photographs show Doherty was unarmed, and that forensic tests on his hands for gunshot residue proved negative.
Bernard 'Barney’ McGuigan, age 41. Shot in the back of the head when he walked out from cover to help Patrick Doherty. He had been waving a white handkerchief to indicate his peaceful intentions. The Saville Inquiry concluded that he was shot by 'Soldier F’.
John Johnston, age 59. Shot in the leg and left shoulder on William Street 15 minutes before the rest of the shooting started. Johnston was not on the march, but on his way to visit a friend in Glenfada Park. He died on 16 June 1972; his death has been attributed to the injuries he received on the day. He was the only fatality not to die immediately or soon after being shot.
Paul McCartney (who is of Irish descent) recorded the first song in response only two days after the incident. The single, entitled “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”, expressed his views on the matter. This song was one of few McCartney released with Wings to be banned by the BBC.
The 1972 John Lennon album Some Time in New York City features a song entitled “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, inspired by the incident, as well as the song “The Luck of the Irish”, which dealt more with the Irish conflict in general. Lennon, who was of Irish descent, also spoke at a protest in New York in support of the victims and families of Bloody Sunday.
Irish poet Thomas Kinsella’s 1972 poem Butcher’s Dozen is a satirical and angry response to the Widgery Tribunal and the events of Bloody Sunday.
Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler (also of Irish descent) wrote the lyrics to the Black Sabbath song “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” on the album of the same name in 1973. Butler stated, “…the Sunday Bloody Sunday thing had just happened in Ireland, when the British troops opened fire on the Irish demonstrators… So I came up with the title 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’, and sort of put it in how the band was feeling at the time, getting away from management, mixed with the state Ireland was in.”
The Roy Harper song “All Ireland” from the album Lifemask, written in the days following the incident, is critical of the military but takes a long-term view with regard to a solution. In Harper’s book (The Passions of Great Fortune), his comment on the song ends “…there must always be some hope that the children of 'Bloody Sunday’, on both sides, can grow into some wisdom”.
Brian Friel’s 1973 play The Freedom of the City deals with the incident from the viewpoint of three civilians.
Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s Casualty (published in Field Work, 1981) criticizes Britain for the death of his friend.
The Irish rock band U2 commemorated the incident in their 1983 protest song “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.
Christy Moore’s song “Minds Locked Shut” on the album Graffiti Tongue is all about the events of the day, and names the dead civilians.
The events of the day have been dramatised in two 2002 television films, Bloody Sunday (starring James Nesbitt) and Sunday by Jimmy McGovern.
The Celtic metal band Cruachan addressed the incident in a song “Bloody Sunday” from their 2004 album Folk-Lore.
Willie Doherty, a Derry-born artist, has amassed a large body of work which addresses the troubles in Northern Ireland. “30 January 1972” deals specifically with the events of Bloody Sunday.
In mid-2005, the play Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry, a dramatisation based on the Saville Inquiry, opened in London, and subsequently travelled to Derry and Dublin. The writer, journalist Richard Norton-Taylor, distilled four years of evidence into two hours of stage performance at the Tricycle Theatre. The play received glowing reviews in all the British broadsheets, including The Times: “The Tricycle’s latest recreation of a major inquiry is its most devastating”; The Daily Telegraph: “I can’t praise this enthralling production too highly… exceptionally gripping courtroom drama”; and The Independent: “A necessary triumph”.
In October 2010, T with the Maggies released the song “Domhnach na Fola” (Irish for “Bloody Sunday”), written by Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill on their debut album.
Read more about the Bogside Massacre
Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?
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Old-style Paedoing, Before It Got Such A Bad Name
Epistemic status: understanding the recent past, which I wasn’t around for, mainly through the lens of comedies, rumour, and scuttlebutt
The story goes that it was an open secret for many years that Sir Jimmy Savile, knight of the realm, was a horrible sex pervert before it all came to light and he was declared a posthumous monster. And this is true - but the specifics are rather vague.
A lot of sources (or, as they are now, brave prescient voices) were bang-on certain he was into some kind of sex crime, but weren’t sure exactly what. Viz simply painted him as a man whose (unspecified) confessional was worth hearing. An early Mitchell and Webb bit came in on some shocking report midway through, leaving the actual deeds as a noodle incident but quite clear they were appalling: ‘you think you know a guy, and then he goes and does something like that.’ Even Johnny Rotten, back in ‘78, went no further than charging him with ‘seediness’ and saying ‘I know some rumours’ in an edgy-kid stream-of-consciousness about all the people he’d like to kill, where he displays a bit too much knowledge about what does and doesn’t constitute libel.
The general charge, if any, seemed to be necrophilia. Lee and Herring’s bit where they dressed as Savile ended with the punchline ‘bagsy I take him to the morgue’. One of Irvine Welsh’s earlier novellas has a Cornish Savile-alike wantonly indulging in any corpse he had access to - Welsh’s version is a more general TV personality rather than specifically a children’s entertainer, probably for fear of litigation. This was no idle fear, Savile was well-known for taking such insinuations courtside, and of course he did sue when Chris Morris falsely announced his death on Radio 1, with the coda ‘the patients [at Savile hunting ground Stoke-Mandeville Hospital] are far from mourning...The majority, if not all of them, are extremely relieved that he’s now dead, although I suspect that some of them will be sorry that he didn't suffer a great deal more’.
Interestingly, Lee and Herring - as they’ve stated publicly - weren’t brave prescient voices. Hanging around Television Centre in their mid-twenties, they’d become aware of this - to them, absurd - rumour that Savile troubled the corpses. They decided that if nothing else it was game for a laugh, presumably with a BBC lawyer standing nervously in the wings and demanding they not get too specific.
Until Savile’s death, this remained a rather murky Soviet truth, and Savile himself remained a respected public figure. Within the third millennium, even as Chris Morris was being castigated for the Paedogeddon special of Brass Eye, BBC brightly-coloured-blobs children’s show The Tweenies had one of its blobs dress up as Savile as a bit of lighthearted fun - in an edition of the show which was, unwisely, repeated in 2013.
(Side note: the same tabloids which threw an ape over the obviously satirical Paedogeddon regularly ran pictures of topless 16-year-olds, until a change in the law in 2003 forced them to stop.)
It’s all out now, of course, but like the sun is one of those things people are wary of looking at directly for fear of the damage it could do. Savile made full abuse of his position as a public figure, to the point that he himself admitted to the necrophilia in idle conversation. Even by the loose standards of the British constabulary they admit there were over 200 actionable complaints made against Savile over the years.
The crux is this - Savile having committed all these beyond-the-pale acts becomes a very convenient way to paper over the point at which, in the broader consciousness, paedophilia went from ‘crime’ to ‘unforgivable, lowest-circle-of-hell crime’ in the vein of necrophilia. Because it was far more acceptable not too long ago, as many legendary musicians can attest. Gary Glitter generally just seemed shocked people were suddenly taking it so seriously - as did Jeffrey Epstein. 
Louis Theroux’s rather regretful pair of documentaries about Savile has the man himself being quite blase about his attitude to underage girls - as were the girls themselves, some of whom, while young at the time, were by their own account quite aware what might be on the cards. Does this make them culpable? Of course not, they were children. But there are those who would disagree. At the time, many would have and did disagree - including, quite likely, serving police constables. The Rotherham grooming gang, so beloved a talking point of those who just want to have a go at Pakistanis in general, were enabled top to bottom by a police force who considered their victims to be ‘slags’.
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naturalrights-retard · 9 months
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The Guardian would have us believe that child trafficking is a QAnon right wing ghost story.   Yet The Guardian was front and center in the Jimmy Savile scandal that embroiled the UK in a pedophile ring of elites and politicians dating back to the 1980’s.  Or The Franklin Scandal that nearly took down the White House with George Bush in the 1980’s.   Or the Belgium Scandal with Marc Dutroux who buried two of his kidnapped rape victims – ALIVE!
According to The Guardian, this is all drivel and never happened…   except they reported on these scandals and confirmed their authenticity.
Those victims who survived these horrors have a continuum;   the perpetrators included politicians, police, MP’s, entertainers, sports figures, and clergy, ie Powerful Figures who could circumvent criminal investigations and charges.  The victims were all deemed to be liars.
This isn’t just Epstein. This is a global Cartel that panders to the whims of people with money.   The means of protection?    Blackmail. Photos.   Videos.
Some of the victims are kidnapped.   Others are given away by their parents for money, others are taken from group homes or foster homes, and still others disappear after crossing the US Border… 50,000 of them according to Biden.   Disappeared.
UN Peacekeepers charged with allegations of trafficking children, raping children, and yet not a single conviction…
Belgium is on the US State Department notification of risk as a hub for child and human trafficking.   Ukraine was/is considered the point of entry.   The ‘Grain Exports’ is likely the means for its continuation. Most of which were sent to Poland.   Except the Polish government declared ‘the grain’ had expired and was tainted.   Meaning the victims perished.
Thereafter, Poland announced they would be a transit route for Ukraine’s Grain to other countries and not a destination –
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Fascinated by The Telegraph reporting on 14 Nov 1966 that two Beatles approached Allen Klein via a third party over their future management and I’ve been trying to work out which two (assuming it wasn’t fake news).
Spoiler: this is long and I got nowhere
The obvious is Paul due to his comment about Klein at some point that year.
Beatles 66 assumes it was John and George, I think based purely on the fact that Paul was on holiday. It being John would make sense as another reason Klein would have gone straight to him in 1969.
NME reported on 18 Nov that George, Ringo and particularly John were annoyed about it. Nothing from Paul who was assumed to know nothing about it due to being in Kenya.
So - what were they up to at that time and were they with Brian?
End of touring was Aug 1966, with rumours of The Beatles splitting up starting soon after.
John went off to film How I Won The War, with Ringo visiting him in Spain on 4 Oct until after 9 Oct.
George and Pattie had gone to India on 14 Sept and returned to London on 22 Oct. He was really getting into songwriting around this time.
John came back to the UK after filming How I Won The War on 6 Nov. He met Yoko at the Indica Gallery on 7 Nov. John later said about this period that he wanted to leave the Beatles at this point and didn’t know what to do so he did the film. I don’t know about John’s mood when he was back in London.
All three were back in the UK by early November, though was John in a frame of mind to be thinking about a new manager at that point?
Paul (he was busy although there’s also a lot due to the existence of the Paul McCartney legacy website)
In Sept (date unknown), Paul and Ringo had gone with Brian to see “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum” to see if the scriptwriter might be a candidate to write their next film.
On Sept 16 Paul and Brian (and Maggie) travelled to Paris to meet John and Neil.
An article in October about the Beatles splitting up said Paul had gone to see the already-completed Family Way film with Brian Epstein (when?).
In October Paul was doing things like going to the opening of the International Times and hanging out at Robert Fraser’s gallery.
I think in Oct he would have been doing The Family Way (also here) although iirc he finished it off when John was there so perhaps also post-19 Nov.
Paul went on holiday to France on 6 Nov (the day John returned from Spain), meeting Mal a week later then heading to Kenya with Jane for a safari. He returned to London on 19 Nov.
The Four Tops performed at the Saville Theatre, owned by Brian, on 12 Nov. The backdrop for the performance was designed by Paul (although no date as to when).
On 20 Nov Brian held a party for the Four Tops, which John and George attended.
Paul was interviewed for the Nov 1966 edition of Beatles Monthly. He spoke about the problem with the American record company having less songs on the album, in answer to a question on the topic. He says ‘but I think we're beginning to get more control now’ which doesn’t suggest a lot either way.
The article
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Klein arrived in London on Friday 11 Nov, the article was Sunday 13 Nov.
One quote ‘Mr Klein had the approach through a third party who was talking to two of The Beatles’ implies not a lot of time between talking to the third party and Klein but maybe not.
Paul had gone away on 6 Nov, the previous Sunday, so whether they knew in advance about Klein’s visit is one question - although why make an overture via a third party of you’re not there to follow up or find out how it went?
I’d suspect the third party might be The Rolling Stones, given the connection, which could suggest Paul and John?
So… idk
The timing and fact that Paul and Brian were doing a lot together just before that time seems to make it unlikely to have been Paul, John’s mood at that time makes in seem unlikely it was him and I can’t imagine it was Ringo. Paul and John only seem to have seen each other in Paris (with Brian) so seems unlikely to have been the two of them. So I guess it was probably George and either Paul or John.
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stairnaheireann · 1 year
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#OTD in 1972 – In what is to become known as Bloody Sunday, the British Army kills 13 civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside district of Derry. A 14th marcher later dies of his injuries.
Thirteen people were shot and killed when British paratroopers opened fire on a crowd of civilians in Derry. Fourteen others were wounded, one later died. The marchers had been campaigning for equal rights such as one man, one vote. Despite initial attempts by British authorities to justify the shootings including a rushed report by Lord Widgery exonerating the troops, the Saville Report which…
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Analysis: CPS prosecuted at least 27 people – and as many as 38 – running post offices during Horizon scandal – it strains credibility to claim he knew nothing
Labour has claimed that none of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutions of innocent sub-postmasters went ‘to [Keir Starmer’s] desk. Starmer himself has now told reporters that he knew nothing about any of the cases:
I wasn’t aware of any of them. I think there was a small number within a 20-year window, that’s all I know. I don’t even now – I think the CPS are helping with inquiries – how many of those may or may not have involved Horizon.
There were at least twenty-seven and as many as thirty eight cases.
One such case that definitely happened under Starmer’s tenure as CPS head was the prosecution of Seema Misra, who was jailed for fifteen months in 2010 – on her son’s tenth birthday – for fraud that she never committed. She was pregnant when she was prosecuted and jailed – and her conviction was only quashed in 2021. The prosecution did not disclose to the court that the Post Office knew the Horizon system was faulty and had at least forty examples of the system causing shortfalls at Post Office branches.
When the scandal of serial rapist Jimmy Savile broke and Starmer was attacked for not prosecuting him, Keir Starmer did not personally deny he had been involved in the decision not to prosecute Savile, instead allowing mouthpieces – including Tory MPs – to say he was not aware of it, insisting that we believe that he ran the CPS and was never asked for his view on whether to prosecute the offender who was, at the time, Britain’s highest-profile entertainer.
Starmer boasted of his role in prosecuting former government minister Chris Huhne and promised the US he would ‘do everything’ to secure the extradition of autistic hacker Gary McKinnon – yet supposedly was not consulted by his subordinates about Savile.
he CPS claimed it had destroyed all records relating to the decision not to prosecute Savile. The CPS also claimed that it had destroyed all records relating to prosecution of Seema Misra.
We are asked to believe that Starmer was not involved in the Savile decision, was not involved in or consulted on any CPS Post Office cases – was not even aware of their existence – despite them taking place while he ran the CPS and despite revelations, a year before the Misra case, in the press about the known, widespread issues with the Horizon system causing false ‘shortfalls’ in Post Office branches.
As Labour leader, Starmer has covered up a whistleblower’s allegations of ‘sadistic’ and ‘criminal’ exploitation of vulnerable domestic violence victims by a Labour staffer who was the lover of the MP she was working for. That MP, Khalid Mahmood, did not dispute a victim’s sworn evidence in whistleblower Elaina Cohen’s successful tribunal for wrongful dismissal – and confirmed under oath that Starmer and Labour general secretary David Evans were fully and repeatedly aware of the allegations.
Starmer also sheltered at least two alleged sex pests in his Shadow Cabinet and re-admitted racist and sex harasser MP Neil Coyle back into the parliamentary party, as well as Mike Gapes, the right-wing former MP who defended fellow right-winger Ian McKenzie after McKenzie tweeted about the rape and beheading of Thornberry herself, and former MPs who defended him. He is a creature of the Establishment and sides with it every time.
What the hell was he doing while he was boss of the CPS if he didn’t know about the highest profile cases and wasn’t consulted on the widest miscarriage of justice in British legal history? This site does not believe it is credible.
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frodolives · 1 year
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Hi!! So sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you could please expand on the pedophile investigation? I���ve never seen anything that suggested he was a pedophile so this is pretty shattering. I was abused as a child so to find out one of the few men I trusted may have also been an abuser is very sad 😭. Anyways sorry if that’s too much info lmao (p.s i love your blog!!)
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OK since I got a few asks about this specific iceberg entry I suppose I should make it its own post. It sounds worse than it (probably) is so I'll just say right off the bat that I don't think Paul was/is an actual pedophile or sexual abuser of any sort... But he's by no means a saint and still did questionable things that I feel a lot of his fans are too wilfully forgetful of. However, I also understand the reluctance to talk about it because it's definitely an uncomfortable and potentially triggering topic. TW for paedophilia and sexual abuse mentions under the cut.
Basically the specific incident I was referring to in the iceberg was this video:
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This video is the only thing I can find on the incident and it's not long so I recommend watching it if you're curious of all the details... The gist is that when the Beatles were in Minneapolis in 1965, the police got reports there was an underage girl in one of the Beatles' motel rooms and when they showed up to investigate they found her in Paul's room.
To Paul's credit, he's kind-of addressed this? Not the specific Minneapolis incident, but he did admit to sleeping with young girls here, saying:
“More generally, then the whole sort of scene was not so PC. [In] that postwar boom, girls and guys, it was a much more open scene… free love and the Pill had just come in, so it was a completely different scene. The other aspect, of course, is that we, though not quite Jimmy [Savile], we were of the age of the girls, we were all young. So if you’re now talking about a 17-, 18-year-old boy with a 15-year-old girl, we all knew that was illegal. We knew it and it was like, ‘NO’. But the closer we were in age, of course, the less it seemed to matter. We knew with under-16s it was illegal, so we didn’t do it [...] We tried to make sure. We couldn't always be sure but there was a definite no-no involved in under-age kids. Hey, listen, we didn't have to worry. There were plenty of over-16-year-olds.”
So Paul admits he slept with young girls when he was young himself, but is also adamant they were never underage. On the surface this kind of contradicts the police investigation saying there was an underage girl in his room, but it's worth noting that the specific age of what is considered "underage" varies from place to place and time to time. (In addition, I think when the police heard a Beatle had a young girl in his room they assumed that meant a child which would explain the need for police intervention, but when they probably realized it was somebody older they seemed to drop the case because as far as my knowledge goes there were no charges made.) Paul specifically says he never slept with anybody under 16, thus essentially admitting to sleeping with 16-year-olds who still would be considered underage in a lot of places. In addition, he admits that "you couldn't always be sure" and I wouldn't be surprised if there were any mature-looking underage fans who lied about being older to sleep with Paul. So personally I think Paul is being honest and I doubt he ever purposefully sought out younger girls (I'm maybe giving him the benefit of the doubt here but I truly don't believe it fits with Paul's personality). But Paul was still on a very thin line...
While Paul wasn't a pedophile in the literal definition of the word (I'm quite positive he never ever slept with a prepubescent child), the age of these teenagers he was sleeping with is definitely still questionable... Paul defending himself saying he was young and that it was a different time kind of sounds like a cop-out, but I also think it's worth emphasizing with him. Paul was young and we know he stopped sleeping with groupies by the time he was in his mid-20s. And as for the different time thing... unfortunately in the 60s, rock stars sleeping with very young fans was incredibly common and normalized. I honestly can't think of a single rock star from that era that isn't guilty of sleeping with questionably young girls. It's also worth noting the young girls in question tended to be groupies who were extremely willing participants and wouldn't themselves have called it abuse (even though it can also be validly argued that Paul took advantage of his fans’ adoration of him and they were too young to properly consent).
Since "free love" was the rock and roll culture and Paul was young and in the depths of it, I can't really blame him for being influenced... at least I can understand his perspective somewhat... of course it sucks that he wasn't the "glowing exception," I really wish he was more careful about who he slept with, but he wasn't.
In short, it's a very complex situation and one of Paul's more questionable incidents... I don't think Paul is some irredeemable pedophile or sexual abuser or anything, I just think this is more a case of him being young, horny, stupid, and negatively influenced by his environment. Though I'm also aware I'm maybe not the best person to give a "take" on this since I know I speak from a place very far removed from groupie culture and I'm a McCartney fan and thus biased. So while personally I "forgive" him for this, I completely understand if somebody can't.
Overall, I believe there should be more wider discussions about the ways rock stars interacted with groupies because there's definitely truth to rock stars abusing their power and influence over fans (some worse than others...) and since it's only really us fans who know about it, we don't want to expose or think about the flaws of our icons, and thus rock stars have basically gotten away with it. I'm not saying we should "cancel" everybody or anything, but I think we should definitely do a better job at evaluating their legacy and the legacy of rock and roll in general. I love rock and roll, it's my favourite thing in the world, and I love Paul McCartney. But completely idealizing is also never healthy.
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coochiequeens · 1 year
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A UK-based drag queen well known for his performances to children is fundraising for the funeral costs of a convicted child sex offender he calls his “friend.”
A UK-based drag queen well known for his performances to children is fundraising for the funeral costs of a convicted child sex offender he calls his “friend.”
On January 23, drag queen Aida H. Dee, the stage name of performer Sab Samuel, announced on Facebook that he was fundraising for the funeral costs of Darren Moore, a fellow drag queen.
“Taken unjustly!” Samuel wrote in his post. “I’d like to help give my friend the send off he deserves,” he wrote, providing the link to a GoFundMe campaign for Moore and affixing to the post a photo of Moore and his husband.
But what Samuel neglected to mention was that Moore is a convicted child sex offender. 
Moore, 39, was found dead in full drag costume on the streets of Cardiff City Centre on the morning of 22 January. Previously known as Darren Sewell, Moore was convicted of four counts of rape on a boy under the age of 14 while living in South Wales. As a result, he spent 3 years in a Young Offenders’ Institution.
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Following his offense, Moore was also banned from having contact with children. But in 2011, he was caught working with youth as a gymnastics and dance tutor and was convicted of breaching the lifetime order. He was sentenced to a three-year sex offender’s treatment program, a 24-month supervision order, 300 hours of community service, and a six-month curfew with an electronic tag.
Moore changed his name after he married his husband, who is also named Darren.
At the time of his death, Moore had worked as a jeweler and performed drag under the names Crystal Couture, CC Quinn and Dolly. Moore had exhibited his jewellery at RuPaul’s annual Dragcon event in London in 2020. 
As a drag queen, Moore once represented British Airways at a Pride Festival in Brighton in 2018. When his previous convictions came to light, British Airways released a statement saying he did not work for the airline but was brought in by a “third party entertainment agency who supplied a number of people for the event.” They also said they were unaware of his convictions under his previous name.
Also in 2018, audience members walked out of a “Pride Without Prejudice” performance of Moore’s after he made light-hearted comments about child abuser Jimmy Saville.
Investigations are still on-going into Moore’s cause of death, but police have cautioned the public against speculation. Despite this, some members and supporters of the drag queen community have already begun to claim Moore’s death was the result of a “hate crime.”
Upon announcements of his death, the drag queen community, particularly in Cardiff, began mourning the loss of Moore on social media.
Sab Samuel, known as “the story time drag queen” Aida H. Dee, posted on his Facebook page that Moore was “an exuberant human being, taken from the world too early,” adding: “Rest In Power!” 
He also shared that he wore jewelry that Moore made for him, and provided a link to a fundraiser to raise money for his funeral costs. Samuel has been seen wearing the ADHD necklace he references in the post at story time events with children and in official Drag Queen Story Hour UK photos.
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Just over two hours later, Samuel posted again in memory of the child sex offender, writing: “Taken unjustly! I’d like to help give my friend the send off he deserves. Please see the link below. This is to support the husband in this horrible horrible time.”
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The top comment on the post raised awareness of Moore’s previous convictions saying “Lots of media now reporting on this death but referring to him as a convicted pedophile.” Comments have since been disabled on the page.
Samuel shared the link to a Gofundme for Moore a third time today, which reads:
“Anyone who knew Darren would know how he was never understated in his appearance and costume. His larger than life character and charisma was something that you’ll never forget. We’d like to support Darren and the family and give Darren the biggest send off. If you’re able to and can afford a few quid, please donate what you can to ensure we do him proud.”
The fundraiser has already surpassed the £3,000 (approx. $3,700 USD) target and has raised £4,875 (approx. $6,000 USD) at the time of this writing. One donator left a message on the page reading, “Had the pleasure of meeting Darren last year in Gran Canaria, although very briefly, you could just tell what a beautiful soul he truly had.”
Another donor wrote: “Darren was and will always be a very special person to have known and been a friend with, his out there personality was contagious and he was someone who you couldn’t but love.” 
Samuel has raised concerns on social media in the past for his conduct around children, with some calling his drag costume inappropriate due to its sometimes prominent genital “bulge.”
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Despite tremendous backlash, he continues to be routinely booked for “story hour” gigs in libraries and public venues across the United Kingdom.
Just weeks prior to posting in support of Moore, Samuel, who is the founder of Drag Queen Story Hour UK, announced he was set to perform for children at The Tate Gallery in London.
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Concerned parents in the nation opposed to Drag Queen Story Hour have established a group called “Art Not Propaganda” and recently stated they have formally complained to The Tate regarding their decision to host the story hour event.
The parents have established a petition which currently has 3,400 signatures, and lists historical posts made by Samuel the group says raises safeguarding concerns.
“Sab Samuel has shared multiple images and comments on social media which raise serious safeguarding red flags. A teacher would be dismissed for the same,” they wrote in the petition. Amongst the infractions are a Twitter post from July of 2020 which Samuels captions “love has no age.” The parents point out that the phrase was popularized by a group which once campaigned to lower the age of sexual consent.
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Other groups, such as Safe Schools Alliance UK and the Family Education Trust, have similarly raised concerns about Samuel’s past conduct. On January 13, Samuel responded to the backlash in an interview with Pink News where he blamed the conservative government for enabling “queer hate.”
Just last year, Pink News named Samuel “Leader of the Year” at their annual awards show for his “work with children, helping them fall in love with literature.”
Samuel first rose to infamy after he began touring libraries across the UK to read in his drag persona. He founded the UK branch of Drag Queen Story Hour in 2019, and his enterprise proudly boasts it has been featured by the National Health Service, Greenpeace, Forbes, and more.
In November of 2022, Samuel uploaded a video to Facebook in which he was almost on the verge of tears while recounting his experience hiding his sexuality from a family member’s children.
“I did not want to tell my family member or their children about me being gay because I could have been a danger — I don’t know, it was weird … I think back to that moment, I felt like a disgusting human being. I’d grown up with the idea that being gay was disgusting,” Samuel says. “People wonder why I do drag queen story hours, it’s because of those reasons there. Because I grew up hating who I was. Now, any kids who are queer are not going to grow up with that in their life. I want kids to grow up to love themselves, but to be surrounded by those who love them too.”
As backlash continues to mount against “drag queen story hours” around the world, Samuel’s events have been met with protests.
During one demonstration at Reading Library last year, two protesters managed to interrupt the session while about 25 others continued outside the venue. They were escorted out by staff and the event continued.
There have been similar demonstrations against such events in North America. As a result, antifa militants wielding guns have been seen standing “guard” in front of some venues hosting drag shows for children.
By Shay Woulahan Shay is a writer and social media content creator for Reduxx. She is a proud lesbian activist and feminist who lives in Northern Ireland with her partner and their four-legged, fluffy friends.
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…..you have got to be joking, can we go one night without getting hurt? Eichel said he was fine the other night but I guess it wasn’t nothing 😞
Also Patera is now day to day(there was a report that he was hurting after the game against the Avs) and we have called Saville up again. I think Thompson is starting since on Twitter someone said he was the one in net for practice.
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Finally, Bjornfot is also out which really stinks cause we brought him up to replace other injured players.
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7-percent · 2 years
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Jim'll Fix it
At the request of @dragonnan, I think it's time to explain to non-Brits who are not familiar with Jimmy Savile just where the connection lies between the TV show of this name and what Sherlock meant at the pool scene.
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“Dear Jim, Please will you fix it for me to disappear to South America”
The television series called “Jim’ll Fix it” was a BBC children’s prgoamme that ran from  May 1975 and July 1994. It was devised and presented by Jimmy Savile and produced by Roger Ordish and encouraged children to write in to have their wishes granted.
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The standard format was that the viewer's letter, which described their wish, would be shown on the screen and read out aloud, initially by Savile, but in later series by the viewer in a voice-over. Savile would then introduce the Fix, which would either have been pre-filmed on location or take place "live" in the studio. At the end, the viewer would join Savile on stage to be congratulated and presented with a large medal with the words "Jim Fixed It For Me" engraved on it.
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Savile was quite an eccentric media personality who started his working life in a coal mine during WW2, sustaining injuries to his spine that took him through years of rehabilitation. He became a DJ playing records at dance halls, then moved on to manage nightclubs and music venues before getting involved with various pop music radio stations.  He broke into TV at Tyne Tees Television with a pop music programme. At the BBC, he presented the first edition of Top of the Pops (a weekly live pop music show) in 1964 and broadcast on Radio 1 from 1968. He also presented the last edition of Top of the Pops in 2006.
His flamboyant personality and eccentricity were used by him to support and promote charitable causes, raising an estimate £40 million pounds for causes. He was closely associated with Stoke Mandeville hospital which specialises in spinal injuries. Leeds General Hospital and Broadmoor Hospital (for the criminally insane) were also principal beneficiaries. Savile won an award from Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers' and Listeners' Association in 1977 for his "wholesome family entertainment". His charitable work led him to receive a knighthood in 1990:  Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG. He was known to have been a friend of Mrs Thatcher.
There was a brief revival in 2007 on UKTV Gold, Jim'll Fix It Strikes Again. The series showed classic moments from the original shows, and attempted to 're-fix' it for some of the original participants. 2011. The BBC announced on 14 November 2011, following Savile's death, that there would be a Christmas special that year which would reprise some of the more spectacular fix-its, including children meeting their idols like Muhammed Ali and Doctor Who. 
Jimmy Savile was a man later revealed to be a serial paedophile and sexual abuser of young women. Literally thousands of young women came forward to tell their stories of how he abused his access to children and young people in hospitals. In an ITV documentary broadcast a year after his death, Scotland Yard police investigators were pursuing lines of inquiry involving 300 victims, coordinating the work of fourteen police forces across the country. An ITV documentary was broadcast in 2012 describing him as a "predatory sex offender". 
In June 2014, investigations into Savile's activities at 28 NHS hospitals, including Leeds General Infirmary and Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, concluded that he had sexually assaulted staff and patients aged between 5 and 75 over several decades. 
The scandal was that rumours had been around for most of that time about his sexual predation but had been ignored by the authorities and the broadcast organisations. The earliest report of abuse came in 1963; in 2007 he was investigated for a particular incident, but the case was dropped due to insufficient evidence. It became widely known but not discussed or publicised in the last five years before his death. The BBC charity Children in Need banned him from participating, disclosed after his death that for more than a decade his  "very strange" and "creepy" behaviour made him unsuitable. 
One of the more bizarre acts of his life was to serve as an informal marriage counsellor to Prince Charles during the break-up of his marriage to Princess Diana. 
For Sherlock fans, the references to Savile abound. Not only is Moriarty described by Sherlock as “Jim’ll fix it” but much of the character of Culverton Smith is based around the behaviour of Savile. 
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