Savile’s Scarborough flat sold to child abuse campaigner


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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Hide AdSir 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.


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.