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I don't think the extent of what he was up to was an open secret. Molesting a 15 year old girl in a BBC dressing room is arguably not quite the same thing as molesting a brain damaged patient, a 9 year old cub scout, or a Broadmoor inmate. Of course I'm not saying it is okay but there is deeply dogdy and then seriously depraved. It seems likely that Savile was in the latter category and was highly adept at keeping his various worlds separate. I cannot help wondering though if his ability to keep everything under wraps for so long and to be so audacious in doing so was facilitated by friends in high places with similar interests, or was he simply a 'successful' sociopath?

On the contrary, there is an argument that all his charitable acts were merely a hugely successful smokescreen giving him much greater access to children, adolescents and institutions. Did he feel guilt? Of course, we'll never know. A priest can't tell. If he was a sociopathic personality then he probably did not have the psychological apparatus to feel guilt.

The appearance is one who revelled and even gloried in his power and now, it seems, that includes the power to manipulate to deceive and get away with it. His epitaph "It was good while it lasted"

Saville was a highly functioning psychopath who manipulated not only individuals but also (nearly) an entire nation into believing his false persona. That's what psychopaths do. They lie and manipulate people. He was very skilled at it, sadly for his victims.


In some ways, the people who covered for him are victims too: Victims of his evil-intentioned manipulations. However, because these individuals were entrusted with the care of others, including many highly vulnerable persons, they should stand up and conceed that their failure to provide duty of care has harmed those in their care. In short they should take their punishments too. But should those punishments be given with a modicum of understanding for the skill that Saville had at manipulating those individuals?


We can all sit back and say, No one is manipulating me. But then again, if someone really skilled is manipulating you, how would you know?


Institutional systems need to be re-written (and I think have largely made improvements in the last ~50 years), in order that internal checks are in place for this kind of behaviour, because it's not something that the person being manipulated can necessarily see for him/herself.

I find it staggering the number of allegations and incdents being reported, and that he got away with it for so long. There were attempts by individuals to expose him but they were always swept under the rug. My impression of the BBC (I first worked for the BBC in 1998) was that of a closed knit group, mostly public school male, who were pretty ruthless. It seems that Saville, once accepted as a 'darling of the beeb' was untouchable. Things have changed a lot since Saville's heyday though. Back then, the bulk of BBC production was in house. Today the opposite is true. And that is I think why it was possible for him to keep his skeletons hidden, or rather, for others to keep them hidden for him.

El Pibe Wrote:

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> Out of curiosity, what's the definition for high

> and low functioning?

> Are they just synonyms for intelligent and stupid?



Sorry, psych books on the top shelf, and I can't be bothered to get the stepladder. But high and low functioning refer more to the person's ability to integrate into society than their IQ alone. For example, a highly intelligent but deeply delusional psychopath who wraps his house in aluminium foil to protect it from alien space crafts is going to ring more than a few alarm bells. In contrast some psychopaths can appear deeply introverted, the weirdo "loner" steretype, though still quite intelligent. Nevertheless, these people attract attention for their inability to integrate. So, in many senses "funtion" is related to how well a psychopath can appear normal.


Although it's questionable how "normal" Saville appeared. Indeed he seemed so weird that he had to be normal, or at least that's what he made (nearly) everyone think. And therein is the evil genius of it. Saville was so well-integreated that he successfully pulled off being a weirdo pretending to be a normal person pretending to be a weirdo. And he used this manipulation to dupe others and to exploit vulnerable individuals, without showing remorse for his misdeeds. That's the sign of a classic psychopath.

maritap Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What's going on with this Jimmy Saville thing,why

> have they waited till the man is dead to open the

> can of worms

> Hmmm I wonder what will be revealed


They couldn't do anything while he was alive, could they?

While alive, Mr Savile maintained the fiction that he was an honourable man through heavy recourse to our liberal laws on libel and slander.

Quite a long piece on Savile and the BBC:

'Light Entertainment. Andrew O?Hagan writes about child abuse and the British public' from link on twitter - here http://media.lrb.co.uk/2012-10-27-andrew-ohagan-light-entertainment.html


It echoes many comments on this thread (including what Saffron said about him being a weirdo>posing as a normal person>pretending to be a weirdo...)


[Edited to add title of linked article]

The biggest shock to me in this whole thing is that anyone was shocked.


I'm not saying that I have not been gob smacked at the extent of his crimes, and the fact that he was able to access so many vulnerable people, but the fact that he was a child molester doesn't shock me in the least bit, he scared the hell out of me when I was a kid, the freak!

Seems extremely weird that a dead man's inheritance can be divvied-up according to compensation claims yet to be decided.

This means that when I die, until my finances have been distributed as per my will, any claims against me that a court believes could result in the assets (if there are any, not a guarantee at all) being shared amongst the wronged ones ?

What portion of the assets can be set aside to wronged ones ? 100 ?

What about the beneficiaries of the will ?


Just seems a bit weird.


And NO, I am not condoning Jimmy's actions !!

Your estate is the net of Assets / Money left behind minus any liabilities. The possible claims can be considered as potential liabilities - thus the decision of the executors of Seville's estate.


However, I wonder what would have happened if the executors had been more fleet of foot and already distributed the money?

> However, I wonder what would have happened if the executors had been more fleet of foot and already distributed the money?


I've seen one media report of a solicitor saying that it would still then be potentially recoverable, but I'm not accepting that on trust.


I don't think any court has yet been asked to exercise its discretion to allow the hearing of any claim against the estate. A claim for personal injury would normally have had to have been made within three years of the claimant's eighteenth birthday. Here's an article on the discretion issue: http://www.halsburyslawexchange.co.uk/jimmy-savile-the-final-cost/ .

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