One formal and nine informal complaints were made against the paedophile at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire
Hospital bosses missed 10 chances to halt Jimmy Savile’s reign of abuse, a report revealed today.
One formal and nine informal complaints were made against the paedophile at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire.
Yet still he was allowed unprecedented access to the NHS where he preyed on patients across 41 hospitals.
A series of reports into the country’s most prolific abuser today detailed how bosses turned a blind eye because of his fame and the amount of cash he raised.
And patients could still be at risk from high-profile predators because many hospitals still do not have “explicit and robust processes for managing their relationships with celebrities”, another report found.
Between 1972 and 1985 nine informal verbal reports were made by Savile’s victims at Stoke Mandeville along with one formal complaint from the father of an 11-year-old girl, one report said.
Bosses were not told of the verbal complaints, and the formal complaint was not passed on to police.
Dr Androulla Johnstone, who led the report into Savile’s abuse at Stoke Mandeville, said: “None of the informal complaints were either taken seriously or escalated to senior management.”
She said: “Whilst witnesses told us it was an open secret within the hospital that Savile was a lecher and general nuisance, none stated that they knew about his sexual abuse activities... We are convinced that the senior top tier didn’t know.”
But she added: “He should never have been given the run of the hospital.”
But victims called the report a “whitewash” after no senior NHS managers were named or blamed for allowing Savile such access to vulnerable people.
Liz Dux of Slater and Gordon Lawyers, representing 44 of Savile’s victims at Stoke Mandeville, said it “beggars belief” that the report found no evidence of senior staff being aware of the abuse.
Speaking of the one formal complaint, she said: “Clearly it was reported at a very senior level. The victim told hold her father, who then went off and reported it to management.
"We do know that numerous people reported it to senior members of staff and they will want answers today as to why people did not act.
“He was synonymous with the place and he was using it as a masquerade for his dreadful activities.”
Barrister Kate Lampard, who led an independent report into how Savile got away with abusing patients, staff and visitors at NHS hospitals over 50 years, said NHS volunteer programmes were still “not managed and overseen at a senior level”, meaning patients could still be at risk.
She added: “There are already more than 78,000 volunteers who in total contribute more than 13million hours per year to the work of acute hospitals in England.”
Ms Lampard said “most NHS organisations still do not have adequately explicit and robust processes for managing their relationships with celebrities, important visitors, fundraisers and donors”.
Probes into 41 hospitals, a children’s home, ambulance service and a hospice found the access Savile was given offered him the “opportunity to commit sexual abuses on a grand scale for nearly 50 years”, Ms Lampard said.
Savile started as a voluntary porter at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire in 1969 and was appointed with “no checks, monitoring or supervision”, the report found. The DJ had his own flat at the hospital as well as an office beside the children’s wards.
He abused at least 60 victims at Stoke Mandeville Hospital alone.
He targeted cancer sufferers, burns victims, pregnant mothers, paralysed women and even bodies of the deceased. As well as patients he abused staff, visitors, volunteers and charity fundraisers.
His victims at Stoke Mandeville ranged in age from eight to 40 years old, but almost half of them were under 16.
Most of the victims were female although 10% were male. The abuse ranged from a grope underneath a hospital gown to full rape.
It is also likely he had sex with bodies in a mortuary at Leeds General Infirmary for up to 50 years, and he is believed to have stolen glass eyes from the dead and made them into medallions and rings.
Staff at Stoke Mandeville revealed that when the DJ visited the hospital, children there were told to pretend to be asleep.
Two former senior doctors at the same hospital were accused of rape and other abuses of children at the hospital at the same time, though there is no evidence to suggest collusion.
One of the doctors, Bruce Bailey, is dead while the other, Michael Salmon, was jailed last Thursday for 18 years, having been found guilty of eight indecent assaults and two rapes of girls aged 12 to 18.
One member of staff at Stoke Mandeville who complained about Savile’s abuse was “severely reprimanded” by bosses and the complaint was dropped.
Another worker there said: “We have to tolerate him because he makes so much money.”
Nurses and other hospital staff dismissed allegations against Savile because he was “feted” by senior management and seen as an asset because he earned them so much money. But Savile was using his celebrity status to cover up his prolific sexual abuse.
The Stoke Mandeville report uncovers the litany of abuse he carried out there for almost a quarter of a century.
It reveals Savile sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl while filming a BBC radio show called Savile’s Travels.
One harrowing piece of testimony from a victim recounts when she was 11 and receiving treatment at Stoke Mandeville for skin cancer.
Savile heard her crying in the treatment room and, finding her alone, he began to abuse her.
When she tried to tell a nurse – whose name she gave as Sister Cherry but who is now dead – she was told to “be quiet, that Savile would not do such a dreadful thing and that he raised a great deal of money for the hospital”.
The victim told how Savile was like a “king” coming onto the ward four times while she was a patient in the summer of 1977, without any questions being asked by staff.
One victim, aged 18 at the time, recalled that the DJ climbed into her room through a window to molest her as she was heavily sedated and recovering from burns to her hands in 1973.
He also spoke to her about her private life, suggesting he had read her medical records, the report said. He groped 19-year-old paraplegic woman in 1973 after taking her for dinner to thank her for helping raise funds towards the hospital’s National Spinal Injuries Centre, forcing himself on her in the back of his car while his driver sat in the front.
Savile’s relationship with the hospital deepened in 1980 when he was appointed by the Government to raise funds for the hospital – giving him even greater access.
A total of 44 reports into Savile’s behaviour at NHS premises have now been released. Three new investigations are under way at Humber NHS Trust, Mersey Care NHS Trust and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.