Former BBC host Jimmy Savile abused 63 people at English hospital

Former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, for decades considered one of Britain’s main role models as a revered television personality, abused 63 people at an English hospital, although none of the victims ever filed any formal complaints to the police, an independent report released on Thursday showed.

According to the report, conducted after several sexual abuse allegations recently emerged in the media, Savile’s reputation as a sexual predator was an “open secret.”

Savile, who died in 2011, has been described by police as a “sex pest,” having abused more than 200 people, both children and adults.

Savile was a TV idol in the U.K. during the period between the seventies and the nineties, and was loved among the public for his charity work for different institutions.

The report is one of many that have highlighted the events involving Savile’s sexual abuses at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire County, located north of London; it noted that a formal complaint had been lodged by the father of a victim in 1977, which apparently was never delivered to the police.

Although the hospital’s staff was aware of Savile’s abuses, his behavior was probably never reported to management, according to the report.

The ages of Savile’s victims, abused between 1968 and 1992, range from 8 to 40 years old.

Besides the formal complaint, there were also nine other informal allegations, which either were not taken seriously or never reached the hospital’s managers, the 348page document revealed.

In the course of conducting research for the report, independent experts interviewed 37 victims, including hospital patients, visitors and healthcare staff, in which all admitted that Savile had either raped or sexually harassed them.

The victims included children as young as 8 years old, as well as adults, including a 20yearold pregnant woman who at the time was staying at the hospital because she had a sick child, in addition to a 19yearold teenage girl in a wheelchair.

One of the victims said that in 1973, when she was 18 years old, Savile entered her room through the window to bother her, while she was falling asleep due to the effect of sedatives.

The report explains that “Savile was an opportunistic predator who could also on occasion show a high degree of premeditation when planning attacks on his victims.”

Despite his actions, Savile was feted by senior directors, as he was perceived as an important asset for the hospital.

The report added that Savile had full access to many areas of the health unit and to various patients throughout the 70s and 80s.

Two years ago, the Metropolitan Police and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children released a joint report based on accusations received after the death of Savile.

This scandal caused a great commotion in the U.K., where the public wondered how Savile was able to abuse so many people for decades without his crimes being noticed by the police or the BBC.

According to police sources, the actions of Savile, who died at age 84, are unprecedented in the United Kingdom.

He committed a disturbingly high number of sexual assaults between 1955 and 2009 at hospitals, care centers for the mentally ill, hospices and even at the BBC’s headquarters.

In addition, 73 percent of the victims were teenagers under the age of 18.

Savile, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, even used BBC offices to take advantage of minors between 1966 and 2006, according to the police.