Jimmy Savile: BBC director-general faces MP questions

The chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, John Whittingdale (pictured, right), said there were three main points that Mr Entwistle, the BBC director-general, would be asked about.

Speaking on the Today programme, Mr Whittingdale said the committee would be addressing both the alleged actions of Mr Savile whilst he worked at the BBC as a radio DJ and television host, and the actions of the corporation following his death.

So what are the three lines of interrogation?

How did he get away with it?

Mr Whittingdale said the first area to be explored is “how it appears that Jimmy Savile was able to behave in this way, over quite a long period of time, sometimes within the BBC’s own premises, and yet nobody appeared to notice or do anything about it.”

The questioning will refer to a number of allegations levelled at Savile, who died last year, that he sexually assaulted girls who appeared on his trademark shows such as Top of the Pops.

Evidence in an ITV documentary, including from from five alleged victims, said that Savile had sexually assaulted girls in his dressing room. There was also evidence that some members of BBC staff had suspicions about his behaviour.

David Nicolson, a director on Jim’ll Fix It, has since told the Sun that he caught Savile having sex with a “very, very young girl” in his dressing room. He said when he raised concerns about Savile’s behaviour, they were laughed away.

Earlier this month, former BBC 1 controller Michael Grade admitted that there were rumours and “question marks” over the behaviour of Savile when he worked at the BBC.

A police investigation into Savile’s behaviour, between 1959 and 2006, is currently following 400 lines of inquiry from over 200 witnesses. The BBC is helping police with their investigation.

Tributes following his death

Savile died on the 29 October 2011 at his home in Roundhay, Leeds. Following his death the BBC commissioned two “tribute” programmes to Savile as a part of its Christmas schedule. At the time, Mr Entwistle was the head of BBC Vision, and was in charge of the Christmas schedule.

On 2 December 2011, Helen Boaden, the BBC’s head of news, told Mr Entwistle that Newsnight was making a programme and that it could result in Christmas schedules needing to be changed. The conversation is said to have lasted less than ten seconds. The tribute programmes went ahead.

At the committee, Mr Entwistle will face questions specifically about his role in the decision-making process that led to the tributes being run.

Mr Whittingdale said: “The second question is, when it began to become clear that he (Savile) was an abuser, why the commissioning of the tributes went ahead around last Christmas, and whether or not George Entwistle who was the director of Vision at the time, had any knowledge?”

He added: “Obviously the decision to go ahead with the tributes itself in retrospect looks wrong if they were already becoming aware of what had been going on and also it was a decision taken by George Entwistle.”

Newsnight dropped

The final set of questions facing Mr Entwistle will be about the decision to drop the Newsnight investigation into Savile’s behaviour.

“Perhaps the most immediate question,” Mr Whittingdale said, “is around the dropping of Newsnight and the very serious suggestions made in Panorama that the account given by the editor is perhaps not entirely accurate.”

On Monday the BBC announced that Peter Rippon, the Newsnight editor, was “stepping aside” from the running of the programme whilst investigations took place.

The BBC also corrected a blog, in which Mr Rippon had explained his reasons for dropping the Newsnight investigation, saying that his explanation was “inaccurate or incomplete in some respects”.

The BBC then elaborated Mr Rippon’s claims that the programme had “no evidence” against Savile in relation to the BBC or Duncroft Approved School for Girls, another place where Savile is accused of sexual abuse, were not entirely true.

Mr Rippon’s blog had also said that all the women Newsnight had spoken to had independently spoken to police – but the BBC said that this was not the case.

The BBC has announced two inquiries into the behaviour of Savile.

Mr Entwistle will appear before the committee from 10.30am on Tuesday 23 October.