Savile ‘paid off sex attack victims half a century ago’

Leeds pensioner Dennis Lemmon, 80, who was a door supervisor at the Mecca Locarno Ballroom during the late 1950s while Savile was manager, said he was told he “paid off” families to escape criminal charges of interfering with young girls.

The latest damning allegations come as Scotland Yard says it is pursuing 340 lines of inquiry in the Savile abuse case, with 12 allegations of sexual offences officially recorded and the number increasing all the time.

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

Mr Lemmon, who was regularly requested to accompany Savile on his walkabouts around the dance hall, said he first heard of the allegations in 1958.

“The first inkling I got of it was when I was told he was going to be up in court,” he told the Yorkshire Post.

“After that I got told he paid them off. I assumed it was the families. Before that there had been no rumours about him.

“I started thinking back to all the times I was walking around with Jimmy. He always did seem to end up with the younger-age girls.”

Savile was manager of the Mecca Locarno Ballroom before launching his media career, and put on lunchtime discos which were regularly attended by schoolchildren and office workers as well as a Saturday afternoon dance for youngsters only.

Police now admit Jimmy Savile’s alleged catalogue of abuse could have spanned six decades and included around 60 victims.

The Department of Health (DoH) has also now been dragged into the scandal over its decision to appoint Savile to lead a “taskforce” at Broadmoor, one of the hospitals where the celebrity allegedly abused patients, as well as Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire.

The department will carry out an investigation into how he was given the position while Ken Clarke was Health Secretary in 1988. The DoH could be sued by victims as it was running the psychiatric hospital at the time, it has been claimed.

In a statement, a DoH spokesman said: “We will investigate the Department of Health’s conduct in apparently appointing Savile to this role.”

MPs have led the condemnation of Savile in the face of the latest revelations.

Leeds MP Fabian Hamilton said Savile had gone from being seen as a saint to Satan by his constituents.

“A year ago I tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons, praising Savile’s work and the money he raised for charity,” he said. “Like so many thousands of people in my constituency and throughout the country, it just makes you feel really foolish for putting him up on that pedestal in the first place.”

Savile’s former employers, the BBC, have been sucked into the scandal after it emerged Newsnight abandoned an investigation into alleged abuse. The organisation has also come under fire for failing to take action over the Jim’ll Fix It presenter’s behaviour on its premises and is accused of having turned a blind eye to inappropriate behaviour by headline celebrities.

On Friday, BBC director-general George Entwistle offered a “profound and heartfelt apology” to the alleged victims of Savile’s sexual abuse as he announced that two inquiries would be launched.

One will look into whether there were any failings over the handling of the abandoned Newsnight piece, while a second independent inquiry will look into the “culture and practices of the BBC during the years Jimmy Savile worked here”.

Alec Shelbrooke, the Conservative MP for Elmet and Rothwell, yesterday said: “The BBC needs a full independent investigation and anyone found wanting no matter how famous, must be prosecuted.

“The same applies to the police, hospitals and charities. Why were investigations dropped or not carried out? People are responsible.”

Mr Shelbrooke also called for all references to Savile in public places to be dropped and his body moved to an anonymous grave.