Top Of The Pops ‘moral danger’
TOP Of The Pops was a ‘moral danger’ to young girls, Dame Janet says. In a damning verdict on one of the BBC’s most successful shows, she said youngsters found themselves in the company of older men and were ‘liable’ to be involved in sexual activity.
BBC bosses wanted young people who were good looking, fashionably dressed and good dancers to attend recordings of the show, which started in 196 with Savile one of the regular presenters.
But managers found it impossible to police the age limit of no under-15s, and up to 100 teenagers determined to get on screen or meet their pop idols would get in to BBC Television Centre. After the filming, some were taken to stars’ dressing rooms which were regarded as ‘havens’ where presenters could molest them. Some of Savile’s victims were sexually abused in the studio itself, at least once while live on air.
Dame Janet said that during the 1960s, 70s and 80s, ‘the BBC should have realised that the way Top Of The Pops was run meant that young girls were at risk of moral danger’.
TOTP ‘effectively provided a “picking up” opportunity’ for warped stars – and there were several warninjg signs, she said. The first concerned Harry Goodwin, the programme’s stills photographer from 196 , who allegedly took pornographic photos of girls in his dressing room after the show.
The second was in 1971 when Vera McAlpine telephoned the BBC to complain her daughter Claire, then 15, had been seduced by a celebrity in his flat after she had attended TOTP as a member of the audience. The BBC carried out an investigation, but in a ‘wholly unsatisfactory’ way. The third was also in 1971, when the News Of The World revealed sordid behind-the-scenes activities. Dame Janet said: ‘No one within the BBC seemed to consider the possibility that the News Of The World articles might have lifted the lid on the true state of affairs at Top Of The Pops.’
In 2006, during the last ever TOTP, BBC presenter Mark Lawson rescued a woman from Savile’s clutches. Savile, then 79, was one of three star DJs invited back.
He grabbed her round the waist and rubbed himself against her, the report says. Lawson saw what was happening and got between Savile and the woman. She later thanked him but did not wish to report the incident.
It came to light only in 2012, when the Savile scandal broke and Lawson reported it to the BBC Investigations Unit.