MPs’ anger as minister rules out Savile inquiry
But BBC boss will be grilled over axed Newsnight probe
CULTURE Secretary Maria Miller was under fire yesterday as she ruled out a full independent inquiry into the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman said the issue had ‘cast a stain’ on the BBC, and MPs on all sides voiced dismay at the corporation’s handling of the affair.
Miss Harman said Savile’s ‘ exalted’ status within the corporation had allowed him to act with impunity.
Tory MP Rob Wilson complained the BBC had still not adequately explained why it dropped a Newsnight report into Savile’s crimes last December. In an emergency statement to the Commons, Mrs Miller replied: ‘ The BBC has launched three separate investigations. The first will look particularly at the allegations with regard to the item on Savile which was inappropriately pulled from Newsnight.’
Her aides later insisted she had ‘misspoken’ and had meant to say ‘allegations’ that the report was pulled inappropriately. But Mrs Miller’s intervention will add to the sense of crisis at the BBC over its handling of the scandal.
BBC director general George Entwistle will be grilled by MPs next week over the decision to not air the Newsnight investigation into Saville and also about how much was known at senior
‘A lot of soul-searching’
levels about the allegations. He will also face questions on whether wider concerns about a culture of sexual harassment at the BBC have been tackled.
In an email to staff last night, BBC director of news Helen Boaden said the corporation was confident the investigation had been dropped for ‘sound editorial reasons’, but acknowledged that ‘people have continued to speculate’. She added: ‘This is a tough time for the organisation as a whole and for some individuals in particular. A lot of soulsearching is naturally taking place.’
Labour leader Ed Miliband called on Mrs Miller to launch an independent inquiry into the corporation’s conduct. He said: ‘I don’t think the BBC can lead their own inquiry. . . I think we need a broader look at these public institutions – the BBC, I’m afraid some parts of the NHS, potentially, Broadmoor. I’m openminded about how it’s done but it’s got to be independent.’
Mr Miliband also signalled he would support ‘ brave’ victims in their fight to get compensation.
Tory MP Anne Main said Mrs Miller should ask Lord Justice Leveson to extend his inquiry into press standards to investigate the BBC’s handling of the Savile scandal. She said she was not confident the BBC had the ‘wherewithal to clean out its own Augean stables’.
But Mrs Miller said she was confident the BBC was taking the allegations ‘very seriously’.
Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine said Savile will become known as ‘one of the most serious predatory paedophiles in criminal history’.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Mr Vine said: ‘The fact that a person was using his BBC prestige and maybe even BBC dressing rooms to attack young children, I find disgusting.’
Police are pursuing 340 leads and believe twisted Savile claimed more than 60 victims in a reign of child abuse that lasted until he was at least 79.
ANDREW Marr’s drunken clinch with a young female producer was raised in Parliament as MPs debated whether the ‘culture’ of the BBC had really changed.
The 53-year-old broadcaster was photographed kissing and fondling the woman last month. Democratic Unionist MP Ian Paisley Jr challenged Mrs Miller in the Commons by saying: ‘Are you utterly convinced the culture of the BBC has changed since the revelations of the vile actions of Jimmy Savile?
‘Just a matter of weeks ago we had one of their senior talent caught in photographs in the grips of a young woman with his hand down her trousers in a public place. He gets away with it with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders and a silly excuse.
‘You know this inquiry by the police will take years and that the BBC will get away in the smoke. Surely now is the time for an independent inquiry into the BBC?’
Mrs Miller said a wider investigation into allegations of sexual harassment at the BBC was already under way, but that Mr Paisley was right to call for it to consider recent allegations.