Police: Savile's Cases of Sexual Abuse Confirmed
HOLMES: Well, the worst has been confirmed in an investigation of one of Britain's most famous TV and radio stars, the late Jimmy Savile. Police say he sexually abused hundreds of people and carried out more than 30 rapes, this taking place over several decades.</s>JIMMY SAVILE, BRITISH TV/RADIO STAR: That's right. Here we go for the</s>HOLMES (voice-over): You may not know his face here in the United States, but from the '60s to the '80s, Savile was a fixture in British homes as families sat down to watch "Top of the Pops" or children's shows like "Jim'll Fix 'Er." As his star rose, he raised millions of dollars for children's hospitals, his work earning him a knighthood back in 1990. But it turns out Savile was a predatory child abuser, who even abused children in hospital wards, on one occasion in a hospice. Victims and witnesses have all come forward now years later.</s>KARIN WARD, SAVILE VICTIM: He asked me for oral sex. And I didn't want to. And he promised me that if I gave him oral sex, that he would arrange for me and my friends to go to the television center and be on his television show.</s>JUNE THORNTON, FORMER PATIENT, LEEDS GENERAL INFIRMARY: Jimmy Savile come to a young lady, sat in the chair -- unfortunately, this lady, I think, had brain damage, because she just sat there and he kissed her. And I thought he was a visitor coming to see her. And he started rubbing his hands down her arms. And then -- I don't know of a nice way to put it, but he molested her. He helped his self and she just sat there and couldn't do anything about it.</s>HOLMES: The details of his sex abuse crimes are vile, as you heard there. Matthew Chance is outside London's Scotland Yard, joins us now. No, you're back in our studio, I think now, back in our London bureau. Matthew, prosecutors admit that they could have brought him to trial before his death in 2011, but failed to do so. Why did they hold off? What's the background that's revealed in this report?</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's an interesting question because there were obviously a number of opportunities that the police and the prosecutors here in Britain had to hold Jimmy Savile to account, to bring to justice before he died in 2011. But they didn't do that. The CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service, the prosecutors here, have essentially gone out and apologized for that, saying that, you know, essentially too much caution was used by the police when they dealt with the complaints they received, first of all, back in 2007, partly because of the sort of aura of celebrity around Jimmy Savile. And that aura is something that he's managed to -- he managed to hide behind over this long sort of career of abuse. The report sort of identifies the real extent of this with the figures that it reveals. Between 1955 and 2009, more than half a century, the police have now documented 450 complaints against Jimmy Savile. And 214 of them have been recorded formally as cases of abuse, including 34 rapes. The diversity of the victims as well is quite notable in the sense that the age diversity is quite a lot, the youngest victim 8 years old, the oldest victim 47 years old. It wasn't just, you know, one gender, either. According to the report, 82 percent of the victims were female, obviously the rest male. And so, you know, extraordinarily diverse cross-section of victims in all ranges of sort of environments that Jimmy Savile managed to abuse.</s>HOLMES: Yes, and as you say, really harnessed that culture of celebrity and, in many ways, was protected by it. You know, he was closely involved, of course, with the BBC, the venerable British broadcaster, because he was their big star for, what, 40 years or so. What has happened at the BBC as a response to all of this?</s>CHANCE: Well, I mean, there's been, you know, a real scandal at the BBC. There's been all sorts of internal inquiries as to, you know, how this could have happened over the decades during which it happened. There's been a review of the editorial procedures inside the BBC because it's emerged that a program which was meant to identify some of these allegations against Jimmy Savile was effectively killed by senior management, editorials management at the organization. The suspicion was that it was to make way for a tribute that was to air about how Jimmy Savile was a great, you know, fundraiser for charity and things like that. So it's been an extraordinarily difficult period for the BBC as well, as well as for the other organizations at which Jimmy Savile undertook this abuse.</s>HOLMES: Yes. And indeed some of the cases did happen at the BBC. Just terrible stuff. Matthew, thanks so much for bringing us this report. Really has been a huge story in Great Britain. We've got some good news now for some American couples in the process of adopting Russian children. A control Russian law banning adoptions by Americans, signed by President Putin just last month, will not be put into place for one year. It was supposed to take effect this month. Now what that means is this: some of those adoptions can proceed.