Former judge opens probe into BBC abuse case

LONDON — A former senior judge has begun to examine the “culture and practices” that lay behind the sexual abuse furor swirling around the television host Jimmy Savile and his employer, the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The inquiry by Dame Janet Smith, a retired appeals court judge who once led an inquiry into a notorious serial killer, came as a senior police commander said Savile’s behavior might have gone unchecked for decades because different British institutions, including local police forces, failed to collate the evidence they had against the flamboyant personality who was seen as a philanthropist and a national treasure.

At the same time, the former head of a BBC children’s charity, Children in Need, said that, even a decade ago, suspicions about Savile were so prevalent that “we didn’t want him anywhere near” the organization.

Smith’s inquiry, which began Monday, is one of two that the BBC has commissioned into the scandal.

It began on the first anniversary of Savile’s death at age 84, and a day after the British police arrested a former pop star, Paul Gadd, better known as Gary Glitter, in the widening scandal.

Gadd has been accused of abusing a teenage girl on BBC premises.

Sharpening the questions about the BBC’s conduct, one of the network’s current affairs programs, Newsnight, began and then canceled an investigation into Savile late last year.

Much attention has focused, too, on why successive heads of the BBC have said they were unaware of the rumors and suspicions about Savile within the organization.

They include the current director general, George Entwistle, and his predecessor, Mark Thompson, the incoming president and chief executive of The New York Times.

Thompson was the head of the organization when the Newsnight investigation was canceled, a time when other BBC departments were planning holiday tributes to honor Savile.

Sir Roger Jones, a former BBC governor and the head of the Children in Need charity, said Monday that he had suspicions more than a decade ago, according to an article on the BBC website.

“I think we all recognized he was a pretty creepy sort of character,” Jones said in the article.

“We took the decision that we didn’t want him anywhere near the charity, and we just stepped up our child protection policies — which again would have put him at risk if he tried anything,” he added.

The other investigation is being led by Nick Pollard.

Pollard is former head of a rival network, Sky News. His probe is looking specifically into the circumstances surrounding the cancellation of the Newsnight investigation.