Bit Bazza-esque this SoG.
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I know they sold Rhodes to Middlesborough, but they should still have enough to avoid the drop.
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I sort of feel sorry form them. Luck of the draw who got Venkys
Ignoring the amusing asides, yes it does look like he has been stitched up.
It took a while to get to the facts but it seems that he was mentioned by a troubled girl who committed suicide - she had claimed to be going out with him, and Frank Sinatra (!) in 1971.
She was dismissed as a fantasist and he was cleared by the police investigation and the coroner of any involvement.
It appears that the BBC made up an enquiry back then to look like they cared, Blackburn denies or forgets being interviewed as part of it and gets sacked for lying.
Meanwhile the BBC has a proud history of sacking whistleblowers and victims while going to great lengths to protect rapists.
And yesterday we were invited to believe that not a single member of the BBC management heard any rumours or complaints about Savile - in forty years!
Thankfully the BBC-financed audit of the BBC procedures decided that their paymaster is now okay.
So all is well and we can forget that sorry episode.
Other than the potential for a massive payout to Blackburn if he sues the arse off them.
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It would appear that the only thing he has done “wrong” was to dispute a meeting that they said he had and he says he didnt. They seem to accept that he had nothing to deal with the problems with this girl. As Rallyboy says, it seems a bit odd that they supposedly know nothing about the activities of Saville, Hall etc but they can nail this meeting with Blackburn with certainty.
The Mirror says they have documents to show he was telling porkies. Or something like that.
The then director general writing down that he’d held a meeting, thus covering his own arse, doesn’t mean that it happened.
Though if you ask anyone in the music business what they were doing 45 years ago, I’m not sure I’d rely on the reliability of their evidence.
Either way this sacking was only thrown out there at this time to distract from the real point - how can the BBC still pretend that no one knew about Savile?
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It was a long time ago granted, although I can remember all of the meetings I have had in the past that have been very serious. I would imagine that Blackburn would know if he met with Bill Cooton or not over an alleged sexual liaison with a young girl. But even if he did have the meeting and has forgotten (or lied), is that a reason to sack him? Apparently he was cleared of any wrong doing. As you say, it is part of an atempt to provide a smoke screen for their ineptitude in dealing with far more serious activities.
Take the strange case of Esther Rantzen. Set up Childline, led the tributes after Savile’s death then sheepishly admitted to knowing about it after the revelations broke. She was married to the BBC controller at the time. She could have and should have stopped it - in many senses, she was fucking ideal for the job. Why didn’t she?
My view is that no-one ever said anything because they knew there was no point, because they knew how high it went.
I know people will say “hey pap, Occams Razor, dude! Simplest explanation, man! Maybe Esther Rantzen is just a cunt!”
That is also a viable explanation.
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Indeed.
I also saw David Attenbrough in a different light when I discovered he was Savile’s boss at one point - he doesn’t like talking about it…
There were people at the BBC who clearly put ratings and money ahead of kids who were being raped.
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David Attenborough is a hero of mine so I’m a bit gutted to hear that.
Interesting interview with Liz Kershaw on Radio 5 this morning with Nikki Campbell ( who was clearly a colleague of hers in the 80’s) The picture they painted of radio one is somewhere in between Smashie and Nicey and an episode of terry and june
He was interviewed on the One Show by Alex James about it, declined to comment, but he was Head of Programmes for both BBC channels in the early 70s, when Savile was arguably causing the most damage.
Stitched
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originally posted by Rallyboy
Indeed.
I also saw David Attenbrough in a different light when I discovered he was Savile’s boss at one point - he doesn’t like talking about it…
There were people at the BBC who clearly put ratings and money ahead of kids who were being raped.
you could say that they put ratings before rapings…
Quids before kids.
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SOG - your choice, but given that the spelling on this thread is borken anyways, and it seems to be a wider discussion on the fallout from Dame Janet Smith’s Savile enquiry, do you reckon it is worth changing the title and re-jigging the OP?
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John Lydon speaking to Piers Morgan. They fucking knew.
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No Pap, you are wrong!
No one in a senior position between 1965 and 2005 knew anything at all - they just paid the best part of £10m to estabish that - and the fact that Blackburn is a liar.
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Saw this many years ago - I can’t watch the video pap linked at the moment but I suspect they play it suring that.
Of course they knew - the Liz Kershaw interview this morning was intersting - she said there were ‘the untouchables’ who were teh old guard of famous people including stuart hall and saville.
She was groped by another DJ, went to tell management who said ‘whats wrong with you , don’t you like it , are you a lesbian?’
This wasn’t the 50’s or 60’s but the late 80’s - she said she’d been asked time and time again why didn’t she tell someone her concerns about saville and her only answer was that they all knew
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