Savile’s Scarborough flat sold to child abuse campaigner

JIMMY Savile’s flat in Scarborough has been sold to one of the country’s leading campaigners against child abuse, it emerged today.
By The Newsroom
Published 27th Mar 2013, 10:23 BST
Jimmy Savile at his Leeds flatJimmy Savile at his Leeds flat
Jimmy Savile at his Leeds flat

Millionaire businessman Sir Rodney Walker was a leading supporter of the NSPCC’s Full Stop campaign chaired by the Duke of York. He personally raised £25 million for the drive to stamp out child cruelty.

He now plans to renovate Savile’s second home in Wessex Court, overlooking the South Bay. Savile originally bought it as a gift to his mother Agnes, keeping it as a shrine to her following her death.

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Sir Rodney, 69, said he had “no second thoughts” about clinching the deal for the three-bedroom property after the scandal into Savile’s child sex abuse broke.

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He said: “I think like everyone else in the country I was totally taken aback. I had never heard any rumours or any suggestion he was not the generous philanthropist we all thought he was.”

The flat went on the market last summer.

Sir Rodney, a former World Snooker and Leicester City chairman originally from Wakefield, already owns a flat on the floor below Savile’s.

A gold Savile memorial plaque installed on the wall by Scarborough Civic Society was removed after being vandalised. Signs to a footpath opposite the building renamed Savile’s View in his honour were also taken down out of respect to victims of the former DJ.