THE creators of momentous BBC Jimmy Savile drama The Reckoning want it to be the trial the sex monster never faced before his death – but the broadcaster could be accused of withholding evidence.
The deeply disturbing BBC1 four-parter, with Steve Coogan as the reviled TV and radio star, looks at how corporation chiefs fast-tracked his career in the Seventies despite a cesspit of rumours swirling around him.
But it skims over the fact the Beeb showed a tribute to Savile immediately after his death in 2011 — then, a month later, axed a Newsnight episode revealing he was a predatory paedophile.
That is despite the drama, which starts on Monday, featuring two victims, Darien and Susan, who slam the BBC’s controversial decisions to honour Savile and scrap their expose.
Darien says: “I found the BBC and other institutions extraordinary, actually talking about the man we all knew, they wanted to make him into a saint.
“I think it was known that there were accusations against Jimmy Savile . . . don’t let this ever happen again. Don’t. Please.”
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Susan added of the tribute programme: “I thought it was absolutely obscene and I didn’t watch it on the television. I couldn’t bear to watch it because I knew different.”
Along with fellow victims Sam and Kevin, Darien and Susan form a group who collaborated on The Reckoning and whose testimony is interspersed with the drama.
All four have their stories told in the programme, made by a team led by executive producer Jeff Pope.
He has worked on acclaimed true crime dramas including Four Lives, The Moorside and Little Boy Blue.
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At the show’s premierer on Thursday he agreed that the BBC’s decision not to air the Newsnight interview was “disastrous”.
But he defended giving it nothing more than a fleeting mention towards the end of the final episode of The Reckoning.
Jeff said: “We hold the BBC to account. I think we did deal with that — we have two victims saying, ‘This is disgraceful’.”
A reference to Newsnight being scrapped pops up in a single sentence shown on screen at the end of the final episode for a few seconds.
BBC chief Charlotte Moore said: “I don’t think we shy away from the BBC’s part in this.
“I think it’s very clear that the people who worked closely with him, who supported his promotion from one show to another, who heard rumours, who said, ‘I don’t think this is the right thing to do’ . . . We’re very clear about that.”
She was referencing the fact that during the Sixties and Seventies, Bill Cotton, who became head of light entertainment and then controller of BBC1, championed Savile, first as host of Top Of The Pops then on Jim’ll Fix It.
That was despite fellow BBC executive Anna Instone warning him about Savile, particularly in the wake of a 15-year-old girl taking her life after appearing on TOTP.
I don’t think that we shy away from the BBC’s part in this.
The Reckoning shows the devastating aftermath of the teen apparently being raped by Savile after a recording of the show and Instone remonstrating with Cotton.
Yet little time is spent looking at the scandal that surrounds the Savile Newsnight expose being scrapped — a decision thought to have contributed to Director-General George Entwhistle’s 2012 resignation after just two months in the role.
The BBC and the creative team were at pains to point out the drama is actually an ITV Studios production, even though it is airing on BBC1.
Jeff said: “It made sense for an outside entity to make this, not a BBC production. Our reputations were on the line because this couldn’t be seen as the BBC marking its own homework.
“Very early it became clear to us that we weren’t going to have anyone on our shoulder and we’d be free to make the film we wanted to make.
“Honestly, there wasn’t any part of the process where we felt censored or put under pressure to make changes or go lighter on the BBC.”
It took an ITV drama in 2012 to expose Savile, who died in 2011 aged 84, for the predator he was. Hundreds of victims then contacted police.
The creators’ argument is that they only wanted The Reckoning to look at the life story of Savile and how he was able to get away with his crimes while alive.
‘Terrible darkness in him’
That sees the drama point towards failings within multiple institutions, including Broadmoor psychiatric hospital, Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
It even sees Savile launch a charm offensive with Margaret Thatcher, one which seems to suggest he got his knighthood in 1990 in return for sorting out Broadmoor for the then Prime Minister.
What fuelled his behaviour? The need to please his beloved mother Agnes Savile, who he called The Duchess, the show suggests.
She tells a priest in confession: “It’s my fault he is like he is. I worry that there’s some terrible darkness in him. A mother should love her child unconditionally — and I don’t.”
Eventually, even she is won over by his rise to fame.
As a devout Catholic, there seems to be a heavy inference that Savile knows he is a vile sinner and is “taking his chances” with God — so his charity work is an attempt to negate his evil with good deeds.
In one scene depicting him dead in his penthouse armchair, his fingers are crossed — perhaps suggesting he is hoping for the best when he meets his maker.
Savile’s charity work also allowed him access to vulnerable young girls. In another scene he slides his hand up the skirt of a paralysed girl in a wheelchair in Stoke Mandeville hospital.
Coogan is mesmerising. He portrays all Savile’s characteristics – from menacing brute to showman – with no slipping into caricature.
The Reckoning doesn’t shirk from outlining many of Savile’s crimes, though stops short of showing the worst moments.
Those moments are horrendous, whether it is Boy Scout Kevin being assaulted in Savile’s dressing room or the 76-year-old lady whose body he violated in a hospital morgue.
He always hinted at his sexual depravity, particularly in some of the tasteless gags he made on TV in later years.
He appeared on a game show with Sir David Frost wearing a top that said: “I’m an animal.” He revelled in preying in plain sight, and his character says in the drama: “What’s the point in committing the perfect crime if nobody knows you’ve done it?”
Steve Coogan is mesmerising as Savile and achieves what he set out to do — portray all the monster’s characteristics, from showman to menacing brute, without ever slipping into caricature.
With this charm and charisma, it is easy to see how he managed to con everyone for so long.
But viewing his life story in its entirety like this seems to prove he was guilty of almost every claim against him.
Writer Neil McKay said: “The survivors said they feel it is the posthumous trial of Jimmy Savile.
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- The Reckoning starts on BBC1 on Monday at 9pm, and is available as a boxset on iPlayer the same day.
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