BBC quizzed Savile on ‘rumours’

A SENIOR MEMBER of staff at the BBC has revealed he questioned Jimmy Savile over rumours about his private life more than 20 years ago.

A s police revealed the DJ and television presenter’s alleged catalogue of child sex abuse could have spanned six decades and included around 60 victims, Derek Chinnery, BBC Radio 1 controller from 1978 to 1985, admitted he quizzed the presenter directly about the rumours.

ScotlandYard said this weekend there are allegations spanning 1959 to 2006.

Mr Chinnery, who was Savile’s boss at Radio 1, told BBC Radio 4: “I asked, ‘What’s all this, these rumours we hear about you Jimmy?’

“A nd he said, ‘That’s all nonsense’. There was no reason to disbelieve (Savile).”

Savile worked at Radio 1 from 1969 to 1989, presenting a show of chart songs from previous decades.

On his acceptance of Savile’s denial, Mr Chinnery told the BBC: “It’s easy now to say ‘How could you just believe him just like that?”’

He added: “He was the sort of man who attracted rumours. A fter all, because he was single, he was always on the move, he was always going around the country.”

Scotland Yard is pursuing 340 lines of inquiry in the Savile abuse case and so far 12 allegations of sexual offences have been officially recorded.

this number

is increasing,

However, police said.

Metropolitan Police detectives are in contact with 14 other forces as the number of allegations against the former DJ continues to rise.

TheBBChasbeensuckedintothescandal after it emerged Newsnight abandoned an investigation into the alleged abuse.

The organisation has also come under fire with claims staff were aware of the Jim’ll Fix It presenter’s behaviour and failed to take action.

Sir Michael Lyons, who was chairman of the BBCTrust until last year, welcomed the investigations into Savile’s behaviour but added there is “a degree of hysteria” when controversies arise involving the BBC.

“It clearly has consequences for the BBC, but frankly I think the consequences spread well beyond the BBC,” he said.

He spoke of lessons to learn about tolerating behaviour of “predatory men”, particularly those “in powerful positions.”

Jimmy Savile entertains children, trapped in a lift, who were presenting a cheque to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and (right) with his jewellery.