Part Two: Jimmy Savile: Britain's Unending Nightmare

Summary

Podcast Summary

Behind the Bastards – Part Two: Jimmy Savile: Britain's Unending Nightmare

Date: April 16, 2026
Host: Robert Evans
Co-hosts: Courtney Kosak, Sophie Lichterman
Podcast Network: Cool Zone Media / iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode (part two in a series on Jimmy Savile) explores the unchecked rise and predatory behavior of Jimmy Savile in mid-20th century Britain. Robert Evans (host) guides the discussion with Courtney Kosak and Sophie Lichterman, examining how Savile's media career flourished amidst his widespread, well-known sexual abuse of teenage girls (and later, boys), and how British cultural, legal, and institutional structures aided in his protection. The episode uses direct accounts, historical context, and testimony from witnesses and victims to outline the deeply disturbing normalization, cover-up, and complicity surrounding Savile’s crimes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Savile’s Early Media Career and Cultural Context

• Ascent to Fame: After failing as a cyclist, Savile found a niche commentating on bike races for the Daily Express, marking his entry into the media (04:33–05:12).
• The BBC Monopoly: At the time, the BBC was the sole legal radio broadcaster in the UK, serving as "cultural gatekeepers" (05:12–08:00).
• Rise of Youth Culture: The late 1950s–1960s saw teenagers become a new demographic with purchasing power, causing anxiety among the older generation—particularly over music and youth gatherings (08:00–09:00).
• Savile as an Outsider: Despite the BBC's stuffy classism, Savile, a “working-class man from Leeds” with eccentric fashion (blazers with lace cuffs, masks), became a teen favorite, using his persona to deflect suspicion (09:36–11:21).

“If you just show up dressed like a maniac and pretend like you’re a normal person… that gets you more attention.” — Robert Evans [10:15]

2. Manipulation, Control, and Early Warning Signs

• Savile’s Teen Appeal: He built rapport with teenagers by adopting their slang and interests — conveniently, teenage girls were his main social circle and victims (11:22–12:19).
• Sociocultural Cover: The adult establishment was relieved Savile could “control” the “scary” new teen demographic, ignoring the warning signs (12:19–13:54).
• Early DJ Innovator: Savile was a pioneer in pop DJ culture — one of the first in the UK to use dual turntables and play recorded music at dance halls (14:25–15:18).
• Violence and Security: He was always flanked by large bouncers, both to project control at events and to protect himself from angry parents (15:31–16:50).

“He wanted a bunch of scary big guys around him because he’s fucking a bunch of teenagers and their parents get angry.” — Robert Evans [15:38]

3. Normalization of Abuse and Predatory Behavior

• Under-Age Relationships: Even by the standards of the time, it was considered “weird” that Savile only pursued teenage girls, sometimes as young as 15 or younger (16:50–18:45).
• Accounts from Victims: Example of Kathy Kirby, who at 17 had sex with Savile due to industry pressures, while he simultaneously pursued her 15-year-old sister (16:57–18:45).
• Power and Coercion: Savile used his access to pop stars as leverage for sexual favors, often described euphemistically in accounts of his venues (23:26–23:40).
• Venue as Hunting Ground: Dance halls like the Mecca and later the Top Ten Club became regular sites for Savile’s predation, often targeting girls under 16 via venue staff complicit in ignoring or facilitating underage attendance (43:49–47:18).

4. Institutional Enablers and Systemic Complicity

• Media and BBC: The BBC not only gave Savile power but also actively recruited underage girls to shows like Top of the Pops for on-screen “sex appeal,” serving both audience and predator (47:18–48:44).
• Public, Police, & Press: Residents, police, and press were aware of Savile’s behavior by the late 1960s. Investigations were spiked at publications like People magazine because Savile was profitable for them (59:14–60:14).
• Complicity Among Law Enforcement: Savile’s primary adult male associates were police. Many were on his payroll or complicit because of the sexual access he provided. Officers intervened to prevent legal actions against him (61:04–62:43).

“Because it was well known that were I to go, I would probably take half the station with me.” — Jimmy Savile, as cited in his 1974 autobiography about police complicity [62:08]

5. Methods of Manipulation and Camouflage

• Outrageous Persona: Savile’s bizarre fashion and behavior (“tricky, not clever”) served as a deliberate cloak for predation (32:00–34:09).
• Selective Abuse: He avoided molesting every girl in his orbit, so many would vouch nothing happened, providing cover (32:33–34:09).

“I never, ever thought that I was clever. Tricky, yes. I’m a very tricky fella. But tricky is much better than being clever. If you are clever, you can slip up … but if you’re tricky, you don’t slip up.” — Jimmy Savile, interview [34:03]

6. Escalation, Public Knowledge, and Systemic Failure

• Public Requests for “Honor Guards”: Savile demanded teenage girls for “guard of honor” duty at public events, which was reported openly in the press and condoned by local authorities (51:17–56:00).
• Drug and Alcohol Use: While not much of a user himself, Savile often got girls drunk to facilitate abuse (56:04–56:16).
• Pregnancies and Aftermath: The episode retells a harrowing account (with multiple allusions to many more) in which a 16-year-old girl was raped, impregnated, and forced into an abortion after Savile’s abuse — a fate likely shared by hundreds of underage victims (63:23–65:26).
• Social Reaction: Despite being “open secrets,” these actions were kept from prosecution or censure, allowing Savile to continue, celebrated and protected, well into his public career and through major honors. Legal authorities, media, and even the royal family become implicated as the story progresses.

7. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We didn’t have this word pedophile in them days. We had the word weirdo. And Savile was a weirdo.” — Jimmy Donnelly, as recalled to biographer Dan Davies [30:55]
• “I’ll take you and you and you. The rest of you come back another time. You might get lucky.” — Savile to girls after his wrestling matches [36:36]
• “If I arrive at the gates of heaven and St. Peter says you’ve been a very tricky man, you can’t come in here, I’ll break his thumbs.” — Jimmy Savile, wrestling magazine interview [38:56]
• “If they [the Rolling Stones] lived or died, it wouldn’t have mattered to me.” — Jimmy Savile, on threatening performers [51:01]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Savile’s Media Break & British Youth Culture: 04:34–11:22
• Early Predation and Venue Management: 12:19–16:50
• Accounts of Abuse & Societal Norms: 16:50–20:37
• DJ Innovations & Club Culture: 14:25–15:26
• Manipulation of Pop Fans, “Groupie Fixer”: 22:00–24:00, 29:10–31:54
• Police Complicity: 61:04–62:43
• Pregnancy and Rape Testimony: 63:23–65:26
• “Guard of Honor” at Civic Event: 51:17–56:00

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Tone, Language, and Reflection

The hosts maintain a blend of biting satire, mounting outrage, gallows humor, and grim historical context. They denounce Savile’s actions unambiguously, but regularly remark on the persistent societal and institutional failings that allowed his abuses to go unchecked, with Courtney offering visceral reactions and Robert maintaining a fact-heavy narrative.

“What a slippery little fuck. What a little grimy little—” — Courtney Kosak [34:25]
“It’s hard to hear. But it happened. And, like, we can’t ignore that these types of things had to happen to so many people, but… wow.”— Courtney Kosak [65:26]

The episode ends with the promise that the story will become even more distressing as they cover Savile’s intersection with the British elite and wider systemic corruption in upcoming parts.

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Conclusion

This installment provides a thorough, unflinching look at how Savile leveraged fame, institutional cowardice, and social taboos to facilitate widespread, decades-long abuse, with his predation enabled by the very people and systems entrusted to protect children. The series is positioned to continue its exploration into higher echelons of power—including the police, BBC hierarchy, and the royal family—that perpetuated and protected Savile’s crimes.

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Further Listening:

• Next: Part Three, covering his 1970s/1980s peak and royal connections
• Earlier: Part One, covering Savile’s childhood and formative years

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Transcript

[Courtney Kosak]

Media.

[Robert Evans]

Hey, everybody. Robert here. And the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences have announced that three different Cool Zone media shows have been nominated for awards at the 30th annual Webby Awards. You can vote on these now if you just google the name of the podcast and the category behind the Bastards is nominated in the experimental and innovation podcasts category. It could Happen here is in the news and politics podcasts category. And James Stout's miniseries Migrating to America, A Dream Worth Dying for has been nominated in the podcasts documentary category. And you can find links to vote for each of these podcasts in the episode description and in the posts on social media for episodes that Could Happen here and behind the Bastards. Thank you. Welcome pod to behind the Bastards cast Robert Evans with Courtney Kosak and Sophie Lichterman. How will everyone be?

[Sophie Lichterman]

We are good.

[Robert Evans]

Is that good? Sophie? Is that a good intro?

[Courtney Kosak]

I liked it. I just gave Anderson my dog like a really big treat and she's enjoying it, which makes me happy.

[Robert Evans]

Good, good. I just scarfed a bunch of trail mix.

[Courtney Kosak]

Love that for you.

[Robert Evans]

Tidied up slightly upstairs.

[Courtney Kosak]

Hey, Courtney, what's that?

[Robert Evans]

We're now recording part two.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Courtney, what's.

[Courtney Kosak]

What's that cute thing behind you? This.

[Sophie Lichterman]

This is my book cover for Girl Gone Wild.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You want to tell the audience about it a little before we talk about a pedophile more?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Jesus. Well, hopefully you listened to the first episode, but yeah, it'd be weird if you didn't. That would be weird. Yeah. It's called Girl Gone Wild. It's about when I sold T shirts on the Girls Gone Wild tour. It's about acting in independ films. It's basically about learning about what society thinks of women, which is a lot like this episode.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately. So this is an iHeart podcast.

[Sophie Lichterman]

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[Robert Evans]

Well, I guess let's get back into it, shall we?

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

So when we left off, Jimmy had just tried his hand, or at least his legs at becoming a professional cyclist and found out that he wasn't quite good enough for that. But he was really good at being a weirdo and that got him a gig commentating for bicycle races, right? So his first proper media job was calling races for the Daily Express, because that was the newspaper that was funding the first Tour of Britain race. Back in the day, newspapers used to have money and they would like fund or support stuff like big races and the like. Been a while since newspapers worked that way.

[Courtney Kosak]

That was like a pain laugh. That was like a triggered cackle.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I was like, oh.

[Robert Evans]

But it wasn't all good because clearly that's how Jimmy Savile gets his fucking break, right? So this newspaper that's funding the races, he's doing like, sees, oh, this guy might have. This guy might have, like it, you know, what it takes to be a star. So they make him a race commentator and he is very good at that job. They pay him a sizable fee in 1954 and this jump starts his career as a bona fide celebrity. He becomes the face and voice of the Daily Express and that starts to earn him attention from the BBC and from Radio 1, which is the BBC's radio thingamajigger right now. Back then The British media environment was much more restrictive than it is today. And the BBC has essentially a monopoly on legal radio play. Right. You're not allowed to just have another radio station. Right. You get in trouble for that now. As a result, the BBC is like. They very much see themselves as cultural gatekeepers of, like, what should be acceptable and popular in Britain. And this pisses off everyone. Because people who run the BBC are old, stuffy, rich assholes, and they have terrible taste in music. And this is the moment in which pop music is starting to explode. You know, you have this period of time, like the mid to late 50s, early 60s, where we've talked. We talked about this on our episodes about Phil Spector with my buddy Will Greasy. Will. This is the first time in which teenagers are like a demographic that you're marketing towards and selling towards. And that music is angled heavily towards the teen set. Because previously, you go back 50 years, teenagers are all working in the mines or something. They're not dancing at party clubs or whatever. They're not. They're not. They're certainly not like a chunk of the. Of the populace that you are, like, trying to sell stuff to. Right. That is also started to change right now, now because the BBC has essentially this monopoly on what can be on the radio. There's this vibrant community that pops up of pirate DJs who are, like, very literally, pirate DJs. This is some very cool stories that come out of this. Cause these guys are, like, living on boats and old defense platforms in the sea.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Evans]

Broadcasting youth music illegally to the island. It's fucking awesome.

[Sophie Lichterman]

They're legit pirate DJs, like literal pirates.

[Robert Evans]

Yes. There is a movie called Pirate Radio that's at least ostensibly about this. I don't remember how good a job it did, honestly. I just remember it exists. So the very idea, again, of youth culture is new and scary to a lot of influential people in British media. Because these are members of the upper class. And they're kind of worried in part because they're all. Every. Everyone who's got money in the Western world is terrified of the Communists, right? And so there's this. This fearful understanding that these young people who have different values, maybe it'll lead them towards, like, socialism and all these other scary things. And there's also just this aspect of. This has never been a thing that existed before teenagers. And there being a whole media industry geared towards teenagers. Is it good? Is it making them bad? Is it gonna damage them? You know, there's a lot of concern about that sort of thing. And unfortunately the concern is focused on like the kind of music as opposed to maybe the people making the music and playing it on the radio, which is who they should have been scared of harming the youth of Britain. The music itself isn't really doing any damage. But I bring all this up to point out that it is very difficult and is a very strange and noteworthy historical fact that within this kind of sclerotic and very much like not welcome, not open to newcomers, not open to like different ideas, this, this like media culture that a guy like Jimmy Savile becomes prominent because Jimmy talks like a working class man from Leeds and he dresses well like this. Sophie will show you one photo of the guy where he's got like. He's wearing like a black velvet mask around his face. He's got his hair slightly curled, his long white hair and he's got like a lace fucking gauntlet around his head. It looks like. It's hard to tell what is going on with his sleeve there.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah, he looks like a cat, low key, love the sleeve.

[Robert Evans]

And he's always, every time he goes out in public, every time he's DJing at an event, every time he's like broadcast he's doing. Cause he's going out to these races. He's always dressed weird in some way. He's always wearing costumes and he never talks about it.

[Courtney Kosak]

I hate to be the person. I would wear the shit out of that blazer with the lace cuff.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, that's fine, Sophie.

[Sophie Lichterman]

The mask is an improvement over the.

[Robert Evans]

Just the face helps, the mask helps

[Courtney Kosak]

weirdly enough hides his. But you know, but one thing that's

[Robert Evans]

important here is he never talks about the way he's dressed. And when people ask him, he'll try to deliberately avoid the question. And he writes about this. I think it's cause he knows basically if you talk about it or explain it, it's not nearly as. It's not nearly as interesting. If you just show up dressed like a maniac and pretend like you're a normal person like everyone else, that gets you more attention. And yeah, that's what he's doing at this point in time.

[Sophie Lichterman]

He learned his lesson from the coal mine situation.

[Robert Evans]

He really did. And part of what he's learned is that if you're dressed like a weirdo, not only does it get you attention and can it quote unquote pay off, but people don't poke too much around you. They're not going to look to see. They're not. No one's Going to investigate to see if you're, like, a dangerous weirdo because they already know you're some kind of weirdo, Right? That's something he starts to realize about. About this. About, like, dressing this way, is it? Weirdly enough, standing out and looking like a maniac diverts suspicion and interest away from his actual behavior.

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's interesting.

[Robert Evans]

Now, Jimmy is immediately successful as a broadcaster. People love him, particularly teenagers, even though by this point he's well into his 20s. He talk. He understands their slang, he talks like a teenager. He understands the music they like, he understands how they're spending their time. Because he socializes almost exclusively with teenage girls, right? And he's doing this because he is having sex with, slash, molesting them. The legal definition is dependent upon the age that they are, again, as I've noted. But that's exclusively who he hangs out with. So he does understand them. Right. And at the time, other people in the media are just like, well, he's the only one these kids seem to really like, get. You know, he understands the kids and we know there's a lot of money there, so we better keep paying Jimmy Savile because he's the only adult we know who can communicate with the teenagers, right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

And that is he.

[Courtney Kosak]

Nobody thinks to go, and I wonder why that is.

[Robert Evans]

And I. No, no, no, not at this point in time. There's no. Nobody's concerned about that.

[Sophie Lichterman]

They are in mid-20s.

[Robert Evans]

Sorry, yeah, he's in his 20s. He's in, like, his mid-20s by this point. Okay, mid to late 20s during this period. And part of what's happening is they're scared of the teenagers, right? This is a frightening and anarchic seeming new segment of the culture. And Jimmy can control them. So a big part of his early success in fame is his ability to convince people in the media who come from money and who are part of this, like, you know, this rarefied air of people who got to do that job back then, that I can make these kids less scary and uncontrollable to you. I know how they tick and I can control them. Right? That's why they're hiring him. Right? So that's great. Basically, he provides these media elites in Britain at the time with a degree of control and predictability over a bunch of teenagers who scared the living shit out of them. Now, good stuff. Nothing like this has ever happened since. His main job was still DJing, and by this point he's helping to manage the Mecha Dance Hall. He is like the manager of the Whole dance hall. And he's often doing shows. And he hits upon the brilliant idea in 1955 of playing top pop hits for his audience while they waited for the house band to rest between sets. So, Norman, normally you just have the band stop and either maybe you'd have a secondary band do something or whatever. But Jimmy comes in and he starts DJing and just putting on playing the hits for these kids. And he's really good at knowing what they want to hear and he's good at, you know, he's talking in between putting on these songs. He's getting the crowd amped up. You guys know what a DJ does, right? But very few people are doing that at this point. He's one of the first generation. He's not. He'll often claim to have been the first dj. I don't think that's really true. But he's part of the first generation of guys doing this. Right. And this proves to be extremely popular and it earns him a promotion. So he's. He's given a job managing a different, much larger dance hall in London. So he's now moved from Leeds to London and he's running this big dance hall and he's got access to this full size ballroom and the power and funding to try something more ambitious than that crude gramophone wired to a speaker that he'd used previously. According to the book In Plain Sight, he was connected to the company Westrex, who made turntables. And quote, he said he walked into the Palais, which is the dance hall he's running, to find an electrician fitting a record deck in the box from which the lighting was operated. He told the man he wanted two turntables and for them to be installed on the stage, one next to the other. It was, he claimed, the first twin turntable system in history. Now, it wasn't an article I found on CNN Notes commentators have pointed out they were available decades earlier. But he was one of the very first guys to do this. Jimmy is legitimately quite novel. I'm sure he saw someone else do it. Maybe, but there aren't a lot of people who did that before. Jimmy Savile, who had a twin turntable system running. Right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Probably a black guy. Everybody in music's ripping off black people at this point.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. But Jimmy, Jimmy does get that reputation as being like the first DJ to do this. Like, and he's got that reputation for quite some time. He also develops a reputation for always traveling with a security team of large and angry bouncers, which he bragged about for years using to brutalize people who stepped out of line during his shows. He had a zero tolerance policy and he talks about this a lot in interviews and stuff because he was, he really liked telling stories about having these big dangerous men beat the shit out of people at his command. Now the fact that Jimmy was always surrounded by dangerous men was, Davies suggests, probably due in part to the fact that at night he would pick out one or more of the girls at his shows to invite backstage and he was scared of their parents, right? So Davey suggests he's kind of lying about the fact that he needed these guys to keep order in his shows. He wanted a bunch of scary big guys around him because he's fucking a bunch of teenagers and their parents get angry, right? And at this point, this is when this stop by the. I mean it had happened at some point previously, but by this point he's like 28 years old. It is no longer even within the standards of the time. People think it's a bit weird that he's pretty much exclusively going after like 16 year old girls, sometimes young girls.

[Courtney Kosak]

So he's molesting a bunch of teenagers. He's sexually abusing a bunch of teenagers,

[Robert Evans]

some of them for in legal, I would say in moral terms, yes, in legal terms, a lot of These are still 16 year old girls. And that is legal, Right? This is important in terms of like why nothing is done. Right. So one of his first victims was Kathy Kirby, who became a prominent singer later herself, but at age 16 went to see 28 year old Jimmy Savile at the Palay. She claims he pursued her and her even younger sister, which is not legal. Now she turned him down. But the next year, 1956, Kathy got to perform on stage at the Palais and was invited to tour with the band leader, Burt Ambrose. And she says that she hit on Burt, but he turned her down because he was 40 years older than her. And I don't know if this is Bert actually trying to be a good guy or just being creepy, but the way he frames, the way he explains turning her down is that like you need to get some experience. Now he may have just meant I don't, I'm not gonna get with a teenage girl that's fucked up. But she interprets this as, oh, I need to go have sex with somebody else first. That that's what he wants and maybe that's what Bert did want. I don't know the guy, right. But Kathy, cause again she's a teenager and she's using the logic of a teenager decides not to say no the next time that Jimmy propositions her so that she can get experience. And again, she's 17 at this point. This is legal, Right? But that's one of the first stories we have of she's very uncomfortable. She's particularly uncomfortable that he's hitting on her 15 year old sister. But she does eventually sleep with him because basically she thinks it'll get her in with someone in the industry she really wants to have a relationship with and work with. And this should get to you kind of how murky a lot of it is at this period of time, right? This is not at all something we can talk about directly using all of our modern terms, right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Well, actually, people today love to cite that this was quote unquote normal back in the day.

[Robert Evans]

It's not normal, we can say, because again, she thinks it's weird that he's hitting on her sister. Right? But she also doesn't think it's weird when she's 17 to hit on like a 40 year old guy. Right? So there is, this is a different time with different values. But what you should note is that by this point in time, this early in the story, people note it's weird and that Jimmy likes them young and that that is weird even within a, a time period in which it's not at nearly as abnormal for older men to have sex with much younger women. Right, got it. Even in that period of time, Jimmy is weird and gets a reputation for liking them young women and girls. Right? Because he's, he's doing both, you know, professionally. During this period, Savile seems to go from strength to strength. He starts mixing popular songs together when he's on stage in a manner much more familiar to modern day listening as DJing. But again, he's not interested in making music or the artistry of any of this. The appeal to him here is always control. Hence, once he turned his second dance hall into a hit, he started stopping shows regularly to announce Smooch time in which he gave the teenage participants permission to grind and make out with each other. This was totally novel. As one regular, this is someone who was attending these shows as a teenager at the time, later told biographer Dan Davies he was giving teenagers the chance to get together. Teenagers had the chance to hug each other and fall in love. It was a romantic, fantastic time. And I can see how for the teenagers at the time, this would be really nice, right? You've got a culture that's much more repressed and you're suddenly Getting this permission in a public space that like, it's okay to make out with other te.

[Courtney Kosak]

All right, okay.

[Robert Evans]

It's like you're with your boyfriend, you're out at the club and he's like, okay, you can all make out now, right? It's very popular, I guess is what I'd say. Like a lot of people. And again, he's the one on stage, he's not making out with anyone at this point in time. He will after the shows. But what he's doing here, as much as a lot of these kids like it, is he's normalizing the fact that it's like, it's not weird to have sexual and like romantic physical contact at what is his place of work, right? And even though he's on stage when he's announcing smooch time, this is going to help to normalize what is going to become predation from a nearly 30 year old man to a bunch of largely 15 to 17 year old girls. That is part of what's happening here. But nobody, it's not noticed as that because all the teens are just happy that someone's saying it's not bad for you to make out with your boyfriend or girlfriend, right? Yeah, like you can, you could get how that camouflages it, right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

It's excellent camo.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, it's really good.

[Sophie Lichterman]

It's kind of a genius. Yeah, Evil genius.

[Robert Evans]

Unfortunately. He is very good at this. In 1958, he's hired by Radio Luxembourg, an independent station on the continent that was popular with the youths. This gives him access to pop musicians, to the biggest stars of the day. He's. He's talking with the Beatles, he's talking with the Rolling Stones, he's talking with fucking Elvis. Right? I mean, at varying points in time. That's not all starting in 1958. But if someone is a pop musician who is famous and beloved, he knows them and you've heard him talk to them on air, so you know he knows them. And this gives him a huge amount of power over the teenage girls in his audience. Now, to the adults who are running the business and who own these venues, this helps to reinforce Jimmy's status as a teen whisperer. Right? Although this is largely based on a misconception they have about his fame because they see like, oh, wow, the teenagers love Jimmy. What's really happening is the teenagers know Jimmy has access to the musicians they love and so they follow him because he provides access to these pop stars, right? And he increasingly grows skilled when he's talking with These teenage girls who are lining up outside of his office after the show at making himself into a gateway between these kids who are obsessed with their favorite musicians and those musicians, that is what provides him with the bulk of his victims. He is the door. If you make Jimmy happy, Jimmy can introduce you to the fucking Beatles. Right? What won't you do for that guy? If you're a 16 year old girl in this period of time, Right.

[Sophie Lichterman]

It's like Weinstein can get you a part in a movie.

[Robert Evans]

Yep, yep. It's how it works pretty much always, right?

[Courtney Kosak]

Yep. Disgusting.

[Robert Evans]

One former employee at the Plaza, which is one of the dance halls he managed, recalled seeing a line of girls outside of Jimmy's office queuing up regularly for what was euphemistically called a chat with Jim.

[Courtney Kosak]

Nope.

[Robert Evans]

He used to always say, I'm going to interview this young lady for a job. That's all he'd say. I don't know what went on behind those doors, but I do know that he was a man. I. We know what was going on behind those doors. Right? And again, while a lot of these girls are legally of age, a lot of them aren't. And we know a lot of them aren't because people talk about him hitting on them when they were 14 or 15 or even younger. Right? And I don't have an exact list of. And here's the age and number of the girls that he molested and the girls who, you know, were of age and maybe consented. I, I don't know how that breaks out as a ratio. But none of this is okay because none of this, all of this is even in the case when they're legally of age, he is making them have sex with him to get access to famous musicians. And that's bad. Like it may not have been a crime at the time, but it's bad now. Jimmy's making good money now. And despite the fact this is something that will be with him most of his life, despite the fact that he now makes good money, he's always driving around like fancy sports cars, Rolls Royces and stuff. He lives in squalor. His apartments are always disgusting. And like the cheapest place he can possibly get his house in this period of time is this gross mold covered flat nicknamed the Black Pad because he painted the walls and everything else black to disguise the grime so that like it wasn't as obvious how gross it was. Rent was a pound fifty per week. He's just cheap, okay? And he doesn't, I don't think he spends a lot of time in his apartment too, so he doesn't see the reason to spend much money on it at this point. He spends a lot of money on his cars. And usually if he's not having sex in his office, he's having sex in his car. Now he does bring people back to his pad to party too, and he's lit the space with red light bulbs to further hide how disgusting it is. But it's gross now.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Did you get a better place with a ball pit or something?

[Robert Evans]

We probably don't need to be giving him notes. I'm sorry, but it is weird. It's kind of a noteworthy thing about how he does this. You know who else lives in squalor? Well, that may not be true.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Businesses behind the products and services, they're

[Robert Evans]

definitely not living in squalor. Living in mold covered apartments and trash pads.

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[Robert Evans]

Ah, and we're back. So, in public, Jimmy always wore expensive, ostentatious clothes and drove luxury cars, particularly Rolls Royces. And these also helped to draw teenaged girls into his orbit. And by the time they got back to his disgusting pad, he'd usually done a good job of roping them in, promising I can get you backstage at this show. You can meet your heroes and get you to come in when you know we're gonna have Elvis in or whatever the studio and you can meet him, you know, if you just do something for me right now. Jimmy is as good as his word. Usually when he makes these promises for a very good reason, right? This isn't he's not fulfilling the promises. He makes these girls who he then molests because he cares about being as good as his word. He is also providing pop stars with groupies who are, quote, ready to go. That's the term he uses, and that's part of his job. He is a fixer for these musicians who are traveling all over the world. They're coming past, you know, they're doing part of their tour in London. So they're going on the radio to talk to Jimmy. He's talking to them about, you know, the show they're doing, and it's expected. Hey, you know, you guys are gonna be in town for just like two nights. Jimmy can hook you up with some girls who are ready to go. You know, like, that's what he's doing. We don't know specifically who he did that for, but he does it a lot. And it's part of the Appeal. It's part of why you go to Savile's parties is if you're famous, he'll get you, hook you up with some groupies, right? It's very normal at the time. It's very bad.

[Sophie Lichterman]

It's very bad. And, yeah, you asked me at the beginning of the first episode how I knew him, and it's those stories. It's like the story of the girl who gets, like, a fish put inside her or like, whatever, that are, like, likely underage girls with these famous musicians.

[Robert Evans]

Yuck. Yeah. And, you know, even when they're not legally underage at the time, it's still bad. Jimmy Donnelly, who attended the Plaza starting at age 16 right around this time, was interviewed about Davies for his book. And his recollections of Savile helped get across something important. Quote, we didn't have this word pedophile in them days. We had the word weirdo. And Savile was a weirdo. He always had the bobby socks girls, the young girls in his cars. He'd always pull up with the girls in his car going home. He'd always have the girls in his car. Right. So, again, as normalized as aspects of this were, it's weird. Jimmy is a weirdo for the time. And people are using the term weirdo to refer to the fact that he's a pedophile. Right. That's known. It's not a secret. It's just not seen as big a problem as it's later going to be seen. But it's not a mystery. Nobody doesn't think he's doing this.

[Sophie Lichterman]

The word's important, though, because weirdo can mean a lot of things.

[Robert Evans]

And that's what Jimmy understands, is that his very oddness, the fact that he is so strange and so. So purposefully strange, is a cloaking device. It helps to hide the fact that he's a predator. Jimmy dressed. And it's not just that. It's that Jimmy dresses in a way because he's dressed so weird and ostentatiously, he regularly gets called a poofter or various other slurs for a homosexual person. Right? And he's fine with this, because if people think he's queer or just off in general, then the fact that he's always surrounded by teenage girls is just another mark of his eccentricity. Right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

And in fact, part of his strategy is he deliberately doesn't have sex with or grope most of the young girls that he's hanging out with. The majority of the girls that he's surrounded by at any given time, he is not molesting because that provides further cover. Right. Most of the girls who are out there will say, nothing happened, you know, and that makes him seem safer and it makes it seem less worth paying attention to. Dan Davies relates the story of Penny Ann Rolls, who met Savile when she was a teenage girl working at a coffee shop that was also a concert venue, which Jimmy Part owned. She recalled, quote, one Sunday night, he used to take a few of us to a restaurant, an Indian place in the curry center of Manchester. We used to go there for curry and he would park his Rolls Royce up. Afterwards, he would take us home with the roof down on his car and we'd all be singing our heads off. She remembers there were three or four girls that Savile took out regularly, but insists he never tried it on with her. I never saw him in a relationship with anyone, she maintains. Between you and I, I don't know whether he was gay. And tactics like this were very much in line with Jimmy's repeatedly elucidated approach to life. He talked about this as a strategy. I'm going to quote from one specific interview he does near the end of his life, but he repeats this sentiment in numerous places over half a century. You see, I never, ever thought that I was clever. Tricky, yes. I'm a very tricky fella. But tricky is much better than being clever. If you are clever, you can slip up because you're clever, but if you're tricky, you don't slip up. You never slip up if you're tricky. Fuck off.

[Courtney Kosak]

Fuck off, Jimmy.

[Robert Evans]

Unfortunately, it works. Yeah, but he talks like he's talking. This guy is being like, I'm tricky. I'm always around teenagers. No one ever has noticed what's wrong with me. What a mystery. This guy was molesting people for decades. We couldn't have known.

[Courtney Kosak]

What a slippery little fuck. What a little grimy little.

[Sophie Lichterman]

It's tricky also because, like, people expect less of the trickiness versus the cleverness. I don't know.

[Robert Evans]

Right, yes, exactly. Now, in books and interviews, reporters would always note that Jimmy never talked about his inner life. Right. You can go through all of the. He wrote books about himself, multiple ones. And you don't get anything about what he actually does on his own or who he is as a person. And in fact, Jimmy claimed not to have an inner life. He would talk about this regularly.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I believe it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do, too. He keeps incredibly busy, not just with work, but with sporting events. He continues to be an Athlete of varying kinds this whole period. And while he's rising to fame during this time when he's, you know, emceeing events and running all these dance halls and stuff, and this popular DJ and on the radio, he's also a prominent wrestler. And in fact, he tried to use his. He gets into wrestling and he tries to use his fame, the fact that he's kind of famous as a broadcaster to jumpstart his wrestling career. And the fact that he is so well known does make him popular to promoters. Like, promoters love having Jimmy Savile on because people will show up to watch him wrestle, but other wrestlers hate it because he's not really a wrestler. Right. And he's kind of like, he's kind of like stealing his way to the top.

[Courtney Kosak]

He's like Logan fucking Paul in wwe.

[Robert Evans]

He's Logan Pauling it, right? Yeah.

[Courtney Kosak]

Real WWE fans hate that guy.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. The website Pro Wrestling Stories notes his toe was broken in his very first match. After one bout, he visited the hospital after his testicles had been kicked up into his body.

[Courtney Kosak]

Nice.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Thank God. Yeah, love that for him.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. There's a couple good bits here of him getting hurt. Savile claims to have fought in over 100 bouts and proudly lost all 35 of his first matches. Despite this and despite his appearance, he was very popular with female fans. One wrestler who did not like Savile and beat him brutally in the ring recalled years later that Savile bragged about girls lining up to see him after fights. He would tell them, I'll take you and you, and you. The rest of you come back another time. You might get lucky.

[Courtney Kosak]

Ew, bro.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now for reference, here's how Jimmy looked back then as a wrestler. And just what an upsetting looking man. I don't know how like he looks like one of the. In this. At least his hair isn't shock white, it's a bit shorter and black. He's like shirtless. Like he's in good shape, you can tell. But again, he just continues. His face is so upsetting always to me.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah, he's got like real potato shaped face and then just like crazy. The bangs. Again, not sure. I mean, I'm, I, I don't want to harp on his appearance, but also

[Robert Evans]

him, yeah, he's, I mean, but also his appearance is a big part his conscious. Right. His appearance is a performance. Right. So there is, you know, it's not totally question on the wrestling because.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Did you say at the beginning that he also messed with boys? Is there any evidence yes, we're getting there.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know when that starts. I don't know that anyone does, but, yes, he molests a shitload of boys, very young ones, as we'll be talking about. I don't know when he begins doing that. We really don't. We will be talking about it later. I have kind of the earliest point that we know he was by, but I don't know how far back that goes. Okay. I should also note, the kind of wrestling Savile did was a mix of, like, the pure entertainment pro wrestling that we Americans know and love today and actual competitive grappling. So these are real fights, right? Like, where there's, like, a winner and a loser. That's not decided ahead of time. And I will talk about one of those fights much later at the end of these episodes. You're gonna need it as a palate cleanser, but that's getting. We'll do that later because, again, it's gonna be necessary. However, it's important you know that the fact that he's bad at wrestling doesn't mean that his time as a wrestler was a failure for Savile. In fact, it's one more thing that makes him seem terrifying and impossible to resist to his victims. The fact that he is a pro wrestler helps helps ensure that when he's molesting someone, they don't fight back because he's scary. He's in really good shape, and he's huge. He is a big man. He's physically dangerous. This is not a. This is a guy who is in fights. This is a guy who knows how to hurt people, and he knows how to use his body to hurt people. He even told one wrestling magazine, if I arrive at the gates of heaven and St. Peter says, you've been a very tricky man, you can't come in here. I'll break his thumbs. Because I'm qualified to do that. Because I've earned a living being a wrestler, and I've not had a problem yet with anyone whose thumbs I've broken. No one could have known. Impossible to know this guy was. Was preying on kids. There were no signs. There were no signs even think of

[Sophie Lichterman]

that scenario in your head.

[Robert Evans]

Also, the fact that, again, he's periodically in his life being like, I'm not clever. I'm tricky, and no one can catch you if you're tricky. And then in this, he's like, St. Peter wouldn't let me into heaven because I'm tricky. Really let you know what he means when he says he's tricky.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Exactly.

[Robert Evans]

In 1964, the BBC asked Jimmy Savile to be the first host of a new television program. Well, I think it's a radio program that becomes TV later. But I. Well, I think it is TV at this point in time. It's a little. Because a lot of media, it's kind of hard to find from 1964. So I think this is a TV program at the time. It's called Top of the Pops, and it's a video showcase of the hit bands of the era that becomes this massive hit. And Jimmy's not the only host. They rotate DJs, so, like, every episode you'll have somebody different, right? But Jimmy is, like, the first one to host the show. And he's, like one of the most regular people that they bring back to host Top of the Pops. During this period of time and throughout the 60s, and I think into the 70s, he's repeatedly voted Britain's favorite DJ. Like, he's the top DJ in the country by pretty much any person's, like, standards. And so he also gets the job regularly when these huge bands that are honestly probably bigger in a lot of ways than any popular musician is today. When you talk about the Beatles or the Stones at their height, he's the guy on stage introducing them whenever they play in England, right? And he continues to. He'll dress in bizarre costumes. I saw one video where he's, like, opening for the Stones and he's dressed as, like, a stereotype of a Japanese woman wearing, like a. Like a kimono and, like, waving a fan to cool himself down as he approaches the microphone. He's got his catchphrases, like, now, then, now, then and now. How about that, then? Because catchphrases were easier to have back then more than anything. Jimmy had access. This is a guy who talks to the Beatles repeatedly. He's in, like, a Top of the Pops. They do, like, a TV skit with the Beatles where Jimmy, cause he's so huge and tall, is like. He's like the Abominable Snowman. And they're all out, like, hiking. And he's like, one by one, like, eating the Beatles, basically. And I don't think they're actually friends. I don't think they know. Like, they're certainly not hanging out socially the rest of their lives. But he knows them. And if you're a teenage girl, all you see is that, like, wow, he knows the fucking Beatles. You know, on stage, when Jimmy wasn't surrounded by pop stars, he was often quite literally buried in girls, which further helped to normalize and disguise his behavior. Here's one example from an episode of Top of the pops in the 1970s that Sophie's gonna play for you here. I fell. I could get used to all this. As it happens, he really couldn't get used to it. So, ladies and gentlemen, all we can say is good night from all of us here on Top of the Pops and it's number one time. And of course, if you believe me now, it's from the one and only Shi Ka Gao. And thank you very much indeed. So for those of you who couldn't see that Jimmy is surrounded by like a dozen young, very young women, I can't tell their age. And one of the girls, the girl next to him keeps like jumping and making like ooh sounds I think. Cuz he's grabbing her the whole time. Oh no. This is the most popular show in the country. One of them at the time, he's just on stage with a bunch of teenage girls groping one of them on video. This is so normalized. This is not hidden. This is not. I have to really emphasize there was no reason not to know what Jimmy was doing here. While I was looking for that clip, I accidentally came across another clip from a 1965 episode of Top of the Pops. And Jimmy's only on for the first second, but once I heard the words to the song he's introducing, I had to include this too, just because it's just a very, I don't know, funny bit of irony. Sophie's gonna play that clip to you now from the 65 episode. The song is called Little Children, Little Children. You dare not tell on me. Why was that a song?

[Sophie Lichterman]

I know just to kind of talk,

[Robert Evans]

make the point about how like some of this is that things were fucked up at the time. Why is that a song? Yeah, just Jimmy settle the pedophile, introducing a song about telling kids not to tell on adults. Great. So by this point, by the time and again, we're in kind of like the mid-60s in this era. Jimmy's moved on from the Mecca he's hosting. He's running things at a new 3,300 person dance hall called the Top 10 Club, which promised live music by famous pop stars and top international DJ Jimmy Savile. On ads for the club, Jimmy was pictured with a chimpanzee for some reason. And the text, it's a gas, it's a ball. It's like crazy, man. The club only allowed people 16 and up, which was again the age of consent. But numerous people who attended in those days have made it clear that lying about your age was so easy as to be essentially encouraged. No one's checking or cares if you're not actually 16, right? And in fact, there's some evidence that, you know, the bouncers, the people like at the gate, are specifically trying to bring in younger girls for reasons I probably don't need to elaborate on here. Now the top 10 club becomes Jimmy's primary, like, hunting area. And he, in order to maintain sort of this, like, his kind of specialness, he forbade. None of the other DJs were allowed to play top 20 hits, right? Because Jimmy knows his popularity is based entirely on his perceived closeness to fame. And this further helps to make him seem special and make it seem like he's got access. Jimmy Donnelly, who we heard from earlier, recalled that Savile always left with girls from their mid to late teens and that it was well known Jimmy Savile liked him young. Now the top 10 club is going to become probably his most reliable hunting ground in this period of life. That's the term Davies uses for it through the mid to late 60s. And both he and the BBC are recruiting girls from the top 10 club, right? Saville is recruiting them because he wants to molest them. And the BBC is recruiting them for the studio audience of their hit new TV show, Top of the Pops because they have just teenagers come in to dance, right? Like these girls are being brought in to like dance on stage, be in the background. It's like in that clip I've shown you, you just have them as set dressings, right? And so you've got like Cecil Corer, who is the assistant producer for the show and a 29 year old man. He'll go talent spotting out at club nights at the top 10 club and he'll hand out tickets to girls. And he, he had said later, I was looking for girls aged 13 to 17, right? That's who he's handing out tickets to be on TV to, said one Top of the Pops director. If they were dancers or were attractive, obviously they got on. So again, both the BBC and Savile are preying on underaged girls. The BBC, because they rec. The BBC recognizes that they have sex appeal, quote, unquote, to the audience, to the musicians, to the DJs and they want there to be girls younger than 16 here. The BBC makes that decision too. This is not just Jimmy deciding to molest kids. The BBC wants to put kids in a position where they will be molested. That is A choice made by the people running the BBC. And it is a choice they keep making for decades. That is a very important part of the story.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And surely they're not getting paid, like, no, no, no. They're getting paid in the ticket to get molested.

[Robert Evans]

They're getting paid in the ticket, you know, and maybe you'll get, you know, with your favorite pop star or whatever, right? That's the, I think, what draws a lot of these kids in, right? Cause obviously they're kids. Jimmy maintained his reputation as Britain's oldest teenager by speaking like kids, knowing their lingo and their music. But his larger appeal was the simple fact that he represented access to the pop stars they idolized. Savile was constantly on the air, on TV or in concerts, introducing the Beatles, Manfred Mann and, of course, the Rolling Stones. And while the kids perceived him as having a close relationship to all these guys, the reality was often uglier. Let's take the Stones as an example. Savile was an early advocate of the band, even when the record company Decca wasn't sure they had what it took to outshine the Beatles. Savile had seen the way audiences went nuts for the group. He described it as rioting. And he supported them in his. He gets a newspaper column, so he's writing newspaper articles about the pop industry at this time. And in his discussions with industry insiders, this does not mean that he was friendly with or liked by the band members. In 1964, after their first number one record, the Stones were booked to play at the top 10 club. The crowd that night was, for lack of a better word, insane. Fights broke out constantly and the police even had to show up. And the Stones, to an extent, part of, like, what they're doing in this time is playing up how crazy their concerts get. This is what's going to kind of culminate in the. Like, there's a. Like, somebody gets killed at one of their concerts by a Hell's Angels, like back in the us. Not crazy. Long after this period of time, because that's part of, like, what makes the Stones famous is how nuts their shows go, how crazy their fans go for them. But things get so bad this night that the Stones refused to play when their time came up, in part because they've lost their instruments. The instruments they were supposed to have didn't show up, and they didn't want to play with the venues backup set of instruments. They didn't think they were good enough. And that's just gonna make the fans even crazier, which Makes them less want to go on the stage. So Jimmy, who's out DJing to try and calm the crowd down, gets called up by an aide and he goes backstage to see what's wrong. And he's told that, like, you know, the band isn't going to play. These instruments aren't good enough. Like they're, they're just going to leave and I'm going to quote now from the book In Plain Sight. Savile's response was characteristically blunt. He pointed to where three of his largest minders were standing and growled, you've got the time it takes this stage to revolve, to make your mind up. If you're not going to play, you're going to be unconscious because my minders are going to chin all of you. All except drummer Charlie Watts, that is. Savile claimed that Watts looked him up and down before speaking. You would, wouldn't you? He said. No, danger, replied Savile, and I'll throw you to the fucking audience. I guarantee you that. And the Rolling Stones agreed. They take their preferred. Preferred audience instruments and they play on their. And they, they go play their show. Right? This is. He does this with other people. This is just one example of, like the way he is. He is very comfortable threatening violence even on these big pop stars. Right, that's. And to be fair, that's.

[Courtney Kosak]

That's wild. Like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Courtney Kosak]

That's unhinged behavior, that level of aggression. Like, I'm sorry to make, to make

[Robert Evans]

Jagger to Mick Jagger. Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And again, also Mick Jagger.

[Robert Evans]

They're young.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

They're kids at this point, too. They're not that much older than their teenage fans. Whereas Jimmy Savile is now pushing like 30, something like. He's a mature adult. You can't think of the Stones as like these massive figures that they are today. Sure, sure, sure. At this point, they're a lot less sure of themselves.

[Courtney Kosak]

That's great context. Thanks.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. So the Stones agree, they play the show. And Savile later told an interviewer that had they refused, I would have had the bastards chinned and slugged to the crowd. If they lived or died, it wouldn't have mattered to me. He's very open about all this stuff.

[Courtney Kosak]

What a maniac.

[Robert Evans]

What a fucking maniac. By this point in the late 60s, he's a well known emcee and public figure. Savile got hired to host shows all over the country. In 1967, the town of Otley hosted their annual civic ball and named it The Pop Civic ball to attract youngsters, of course, Jimmy Savile was asked to attend as chief guest and he responded with a list of conditions for his appearance. The first was that his normal 200 pound fee had to go to a local charity. Right. So that's what you start. Your first demand is don't pay me. Send the money to a local charity. Right. Because that deflects suspicion. Particularly it deflects suspicion. Before his second and third condition. I wish to sleep the night on the Chevin, which is like a park or something nearby, in a tent which you will organize plus sleeping bag and a large torch. And this is the answer that the venue gives. I will personally organize a tent plus sleeping bags and a large torch for you to sleep overnight and moreover will hold you to it. And his third demand is a guard of honor of six young ladies in another tent. Of course, to keep me safe and the venue answers, I'll organize a guard of honor of six young ladies, but I won't be held to their compliance or your safety. Get it? The town, you know, whatever representative of the town is like, I'll make sure there's those six young ladies for you, but I won't make sure you don't molest them. That's. This is in writing.

[Courtney Kosak]

This is called sex trafficking.

[Robert Evans]

This is in writing.

[Courtney Kosak]

That's. Yeah, that. That's horrific. That's deeply horrible. That's repugnant.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, it gets so much worse. This happens all the time. Again, he's.

[Courtney Kosak]

I've been angry this entire episode, but that, that thing is absolutely just. I'm disgusted.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. And this is public at the time. He talks about it to the media that he made the town provide him with 16 age girls. And they did. Everyone knows this. It's not hidden. His fourth condition is that he be given a tour of the local hospital because he likes volunteering at hospitals. We'll talk about that a lot more. But he loves going out and doing it, you know, doing his good charitable work at these hospitals. Right. And so you see you sandwich. I want teenage girls and privacy so that I can molest them in between money to charity, volunteer at a local hospital. Right. You see what he's doing here? You know, now all of these become standard demands for him in the years to come. Whenever he's asked to do something like this, he is constantly hosting events and he will always say, okay, I need you to provide me with this number of girls as an honor guard or whatever. You know, sometimes to camp with, sometimes to hang out with, sometimes to, like, wake him up in the morning. Right. And it'll always open with a charitable donation. And then in the middle is the girls. And at the end is some other, like, good cause volunteering at a hospital or something. All of these demands, particularly for the honor guard, were publicized at the time. Local press wrote about this. Jimmy wrote about this in his autobiography. In his autobiography, which is published after he is awarded the OBE or Order of the British Empire, which is a step below knighthood, in his autobiography, he describes the teenage girls that this town provided him with as looking good enough to eat. Now, I don't know precisely. Yeah. This is not hidden.

[Courtney Kosak]

What year are we in Robert here?

[Robert Evans]

67. 67.

[Courtney Kosak]

And how old would he be, roughly?

[Robert Evans]

He's like. He's gotta be. He's, like, 29, pushing 30.

[Courtney Kosak]

And has the face. That is.

[Robert Evans]

His face looks like Jimmy Savile.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know precisely how old the girls were, but they all seem to have been under 18. In the book In Plain Sight, Davies writes, and he's talking about a woman who told him who was one of these girls and talked to him years later about it. Right. The woman recalled that it was bitterly cold when the girls got into their sleeping bags in the separate tent that had been set up for them in that clearing. It was at this point in the early hours of the morning, Jimmy Savile, who had been playing them with vodka all night but not drinking himself, came in and tried it on with each of the girls, although the woman refused to elaborate on what had happened on the grounds that she didn't think it fair on the others in the tent that night. She did describe Jimmy Savile as a disgusting old man and a pervert. Her version of events was that they were saved when youths from the rugby club shot out the paraffin lamps with air rifles. They had followed us up there, she said. She described the girls huddling in the tent while a fight broke out between Savile and the youth. Savile was violent, really nasty. Once he turned, she added, thank God. Salute to those teenagers just shooting a tent with an air rifle. Thank God for you.

[Sophie Lichterman]

The honor guard term is, like, so ironic. Disgusting.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And also, it's one of the grossest things I've ever heard. Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

I was gonna ask you. You said the vodka thing, but, like, is he. Is this a common thing that he's, like, trying them?

[Robert Evans]

He does not seem to have been very much of a drinker or much of a. I'm sure he did some, but he doesn't seem to have much of a drinker or much into drugs, but he plies girls with them. He does a lot of that in this period of time and later, so we'll talk more about that. But this is as good a time as any to go to ads. I guess.

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[Robert Evans]

We're back. So the same year that Jimmy Saville helped host the Otley Pop Civic Ball, a magazine called People. I don't think this is the People magazine we have today. I think it was. A different magazine called People launched an investigation into Savile predilection for young girls based on numerous complaints by underaged girls that he had raped or otherwise abused them. This is happening as early as 1967. The investigation was never published though because the editor of the magazine, Sam Campbell, had hired Jimmy Savile as a columnist because he's going to draw in young readers. And so basically he's like, we're not going to publish an investigation over whether or not this guy's molesting girls. He's one of our most popular columnists, you know. In January of 1972, after receiving the OBE, People, this magazine published a four part series with Jimmy titled Me and My 3000 Birds at Jimmy Savile's own story. Give you a guess as to what that's about.

[Courtney Kosak]

Disgusting.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Oh my God.

[Robert Evans]

Yep. Now when you're. And 3000's a very realistic. I don't know, maybe not at this point in time, but his victim's number in the thousands.

[Sophie Lichterman]

And when you're abusing women, A pedophile of distinction with his obe.

[Robert Evans]

With his obe. Yes, yes. Pedophile, obe. Now, when you're abusing women and girls at the rate Jimmy was during this period, you're gonna need a close circle of cop friends if you want to avoid trouble. And from the start of his period of major fame in the late 60s through the early 70s up to the end of his life, the adult men that Jimmy Saviles primarily socialized with appear to have been police officers. Yeah, when he's hanging out with other adult men, they are often, if not mainly cops. Those are his best friends.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Is the cops.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, they would be all the cops. Yeah, they would be bastards. During the height of his dance hall days, Manchester police officer Louis the Lion Harper was, Per Davies, Jimmy Savile's eyes and ears. He's watching to hear if there are any complaints he needs to take care of. Harper was the chief superintendent of the city center and a prominent member of the vice squad. As a note, when Harper died, he left more in his will than he had earned in total during his time on the police force. Not crooked at all. Not getting bribed by Jimmy.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah, who gave him that nickname.

[Robert Evans]

Fucking like the lion.

[Courtney Kosak]

Tywin Lannister, ass. Shit. What the fuck?

[Robert Evans]

One of My sources for these episodes was an article in the UK Tribune by Farrell Kinney. He notes that in Savile's out of print 1974 autobiography, as it happens, Jimmy referenced a female Manchester police officer who attempted to bring char charges against him for harboring a teenaged runaway. That means a girl ran away from home and Jimmy was keeping her in one of his houses, Right?

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

However, this officer was, in Savile's words, dissuaded from going through with this by her colleagues, quote, because it was well known that were I to go, I would probably take half the station with me. Now, does that mean that if Savile were charged, half the station would quit because they were his friends? Or does that mean that if Savile were charged, he would tell stories about half the station because he was providing half the Manchester police force with teenaged girls to molest. What do you think's more likely?

[Sophie Lichterman]

That's so shady.

[Robert Evans]

I know what I think is more likely. The finest. Manchester's finest. Yeah, good, guys. Now, we know that during this period where Jimmy was managing his dance halls, doing Top of the Pops, and starting with the TV show he's going to start, we'll talk about in part three, Jim will fix it. He impregnated at least two teenaged girls. I am only going to give you one of these accounts and I'm sure there were more. I'm gonna only give one of these accounts in the interest of just not breaking everybody's spirit, but you should know this is happening more than the one time we're talking about.

[Courtney Kosak]

My spirit's pretty broken before you even got to this part. This is just like.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Courtney Kosak]

Jesus Christ.

[Robert Evans]

Now, this particular allegation that I'm going to relate came out in October of 2012, which is after Savile's death. But the alleged crime occur 1964, when the woman in question was 16 years old and a virgin. She had started an Elvis Presley fan club and Savile invited her on his Radio Luxembourg show to talk about the fan club she had. And he tells her afterwards, well, I'm flying to America soon and I'm gonna visit Elvis. I'll be hanging out with him. So why don't you send me a picture of you that I can give to the King? Right. So she does this and I'm gonna quote from in plain sight as to what happened next. According to the woman who did not want to reveal her identity, on returning from the stage, Savile phoned her house and told her he had a present for her from Elvis. She was understandably thrilled and recalled walking to the London hotel where Savile was staying. She said he met her in his pajamas. He then took her into his room, pinned her to the wall, and started kissing her. The man said she pleaded for him to stop. He whispered, you're an angel, before pushing her onto the bed and raping her. Afterwards, when he's done, he tosses her some badges from the new Elvis Presley movie Kissing Cousins and leads. That's the present from Elvis. So she goes home after this. She misses her next two periods and she realizes that she's pregnant. She attempts to induce a miscarriage. Eventually, her father takes her to receive an illegal abortion, which she endures without painkillers. This was physically damaging enough that she endures multiple miscarriages as a young woman in her 20s. Again, not the only story like this. And again, to a point of. Even when someone's technically legally of the age, he is still often raping the people who are legally of age. It's just that. Who's gonna charge him with rape? The cops he's friends with?

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Yeah.

[Courtney Kosak]

Wow. Robert.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Yeah. I wasn't quite ready for that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. That's what. We're only gonna relate one of the. That the stories of girls that he rapes and impregnates. But there's more than one. There's more than one. I don't know how many. There were. Could have been hundreds, to be honest. Yeah, it could have been hundreds.

[Courtney Kosak]

It's hard to hear. But happened. And, like, we can't ignore.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Courtney Kosak]

That these types of things had to happen to so many people, but. Wow. Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Behind the euphemism of honor guard or whatever, there's a lot of. That.

[Robert Evans]

There's a lot of real bleak stuff behind these euphemistic terms.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah. Just to say, I'm so glad that guy's dead. I really enjoyed.

[Robert Evans]

He's for sure dead. Yeah.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah.

[Sophie Lichterman]

But he should have had to pay for it a little.

[Robert Evans]

He didn't ever pay for it.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah. And so there's many such cases where this has happened, which is why it's important that we talk about horrific things that have happened in history and today so that, like, people know what to look for. But this is like, there. There were so many people where. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I think that's why there's only going to be more of it as this goes on.

[Courtney Kosak]

Yeah. I think that that's part of what's really hard to stomach for me, because so many people are aware and, like, honestly hearing that, you know, not that you know, any cop isn't a bastard, but hearing that a. A woman knew about this and a

[Robert Evans]

woman officer and tried to do something.

[Courtney Kosak]

Tried to do something. But honestly, girl didn't try that hard. And like, that's heartbreaking.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Well, this is.

[Robert Evans]

Who knows, she may have been threatened with murder. Like a bunch of her fellow cops may have said, well, fucking kill. Like, I don't know what she is.

[Courtney Kosak]

That's completely.

[Robert Evans]

I have no idea.

[Courtney Kosak]

You know, I'm just like not to.

[Robert Evans]

Not to hold water for a cop. And I literally don't know. And I can imagine it being pretty brutal for a while.

[Courtney Kosak]

It's just like all these people are responsible for his crimes. Like, you knew. You fucking knew what he was. And like, he. One of the most vile people to ever live.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Well, and one of the. At this point in the story, you do. You can still say the thing that, like, this is all happening within this subculture, pop music, and the people who are, like, presenting it to the nation, where this kind of behavior is extremely common and normalized. That's true up to this point in the story. It is not gonna be true for most of Jimmy Savile's life as a sex offender when I tell you at this point, the people implicated in his behavior are some cops and other DJs and like BBC people working at the time. By the end of this story, the entire royal family, including Princess Di, are implicated in degrees of his crimes. In addition to Margaret Thatcher, the whole ruling class of England is implicated in what Jimmy Savile did. So that's cool. We'll talk about that in part three and four next week.

[Sophie Lichterman]

God, I love Princess Di. That ruined it for me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. I mean, maybe she didn't know anything. I don't know. Prince Charles sure did. King Charles sure did. Absolutely. We'll talk about all that in the subsequent episodes. I know that Di was a good friend of Saffle's for a chunk of her life. I don't know what she knew, but we know what Charles knew, and Prince

[Sophie Lichterman]

Andrew is so funny is when I saw your Epstein episodes, I was like, jealous of the guest and I manifested too hard because look what episode I wound up.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Because he's very much, in some ways is kind of like the English equivalent. Right. You know, in some very different ways. And we'll talk about all that in part three and four. But yeah, you want to plug your book before we roll out here?

[Courtney Kosak]

Jesus Christ, you guys.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Girls Gone Girl Gone Wild. Girls Gone Wild is similar to this, but different. But Girl Gone Wild is a feminist manifesto. So if you need something to just wash out that gross taste in your mouth after that brutal rape scene we just heard, order yourself a copy. That's the best plug I have.

[Robert Evans]

Cool. Well, sorry for these episodes being so bleak, folks, but it's not gonna get better. But hey, we'll get to, you know, we will get to talk about Jimmy Savile experiencing some degree of comeuppance. Not unfortunately, if the legal variety. But I am saving a good story for the end of this just as a palate cleanser. So I'll promise you all that.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Can't wait.

[Courtney Kosak]

Well, shit, thanks.

[Robert Evans]

Until next week everybody.

[Courtney Kosak]

You know, touch grass, pet a dog if they want you to pet it.

[Robert Evans]

If you know a BBC executive, sock em right in the teeth. You know, I mean they're probably at this point all those guys are gone, but probably still deserve it.

[Courtney Kosak]

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com BehindTheBastards we love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.

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[Robert Evans]

sight your lawn has ever seen. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday this spring. Unleash soil science like never before. Witness your custom lawn plan and the

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transformation to a soft, green paradise.

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the countdown is on for the 2026 NFL Draft, presented by Bud Light. Catch all seven rounds, three days live from Pittsburgh, April 23rd through 25th. Watch every pick live on NFL Network, ESPN and ABC. NFL Network is also streaming with NFL Plus. It all starts Thursday at 8pm Eastern. Visit NFL.com draft for more information. Subscription required for NFL plus, visit plus.NFL.com for terms.

[Robert Evans]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Sophie Lichterman]

Guaranteed Human.