Millionaire Jimmy Savile ‘was miser who lived in derelict house with no TV or kettle’

The paedophile broadcaster ran a string of nightclubs across Manchester in the early to mid-1960s but was happy to live alone in a dilapidated house with no kitchen, no kettle and painted black walls to cover up falling plaster.

The historic sex abuse trial of his associate Ray Teret heard that Savile lived in Great Clowes Street, Higher Broughton, near to one of his nightspots - the Jimmy Savile Disc Club.

Teret told the jury: “It was a big old rambling Victorian square building. A house of three floors, totally detached. It was like a haunted house on the corner

“It was a joke really. It was derelict, the whole house. There were no lights in the corridor. The door had no proper handle on it.

“There was just one room at the front. When he moved into it all the plaster had come off the walls. He got a doorman he knew to fill it all in matt black.

“He didn’t have a television. He didn’t have a kettle.”

The property was described as “ramshackle” by Alan Leek, a junior reporter at the now-defunct Manchester Comet newspaper in the mid-60s.

He was sent to Savile’s home to interview him about why “a millionaire” was being given a brand new flat by the council because the property was due for demolition.

He, too, recalled that the walls had been painted black.

“It was very dark was the overall impression I got,” he told the court. “Dark and tatty.”

He said Savile had four cars - two Rolls-Royces, a three-wheel Isetta bubble car and an E-type Jaguar.

He said Savile’s home was ‘’semi-derelict’’ and that was why the council was knocking it down.

Mr Leek said: ‘’He (Savile) said ‘I’m entitled to a flat, I need a base to work from in Manchester’.’’

Savile’s meanness with money was further described by Teret in a trip the pair took to the Jersey Flower Festival in the early 1970s, to which Savile had been invited.

The DJ was prepared to sleep in a motorhome in a hotel car park rather than pay for a room, the court heard.

Teret said: “We got the ship at Southampton. I had to load the vehicle on because he would not do it because he was ‘the star’.

“I had to drive from the docks because he was the star. He took over when he drove into the hotel car park.”

Teret said the plan was for the pair to sleep in the vehicle.

“A great example of his frugality,” Teret wrote in a journal that was recovered on his arrest.

But the hotel offered Savile a free room and the DJ then handed Teret a sleeping bag to stay in the motorhome.

Months later it was announced that Savile was to receive an OBE for his charity work, the court heard.

Teret wrote about a note that Savile sent to him on official Buckingham Palace notepaper informing him of his honour.

The passage read: “’Vot About Ze £40?’”

Teret recalled: “He’d sent me half the bill for the cafe food for the Jersey trip and he hadn’t even bought the paper he’d written it on. Frugal or what!!”

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