The investigation into the DJ's alleged sexual abuse has unearthed a culture where celebrities exploited their power with impunity - and other names are cropping up © RexOne senior BBC presenter at the time said: “I always thought he was a horrible man, quite frankly. We all knew he was up to something – we just didn’t know what”
When Vera McAlpine is buried on Wednesday, having died last week at the age of 90, the friends and relatives attending the service will cast their minds back to another death in the family 41 years ago. And as they gather, they will inevitably wonder why Vera went to her grave never having seen justice done over the death of her daughter.
Clair McAlpine, a dancer on
Top of the Pops, was just 15 when she took her own life by swallowing two bottles of sleeping pills on March 29, 1971. Vera had discovered her daughter's body lying on the floor of her bedroom at their home in Watford in Hertfordshire.
Beside the corpse were the empty bottles and Clair's red diary; a diary that contained disturbing claims written in the girl's own hand that suggest she may have been a victim of Sir Jimmy Savile's alleged sexual predatory instincts.
Savile, almost a year after his own death at the age of 84, now stands accused by more than 40 women of rape or sexual assault. Most of his victims were at the time of the alleged offences still teenagers; young, impressionable girls whom Savile groomed and preyed upon. When he passed away last year, Savile's death was mourned by a nation.
Thousands lined the route as his coffin was driven though his home town of Leeds. In life, he had been a national treasure, one of Britain's most famous broadcasters, who had raised upwards of £40 million for charity. In death, his life and times are being properly investigated and make uncomfortable reading. There are serious questions over the role played by the BBC in possibly covering up his alleged offences and even in aiding and abetting them. The culture of the times suggests famous men like Savile and others, such as the pop star Gary Glitter and the record producer Jonathan King - in King's case he abused boys - could allow them to prey on children and, despite the rumours and innuendo, get away with it for years
Comment: What is this, Idiocracy?! It pretty much tells us all we need to know about the direction our world is heading in when someone of this 'character' can rise to become a U.S. congressman, scientist and member of the House Science Committee.