After his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse made against him were investigated, tarnishing his reputation and leading the police to conclude that he was a predatory sex offender[1] and possibly one of Britain's most prolific.

Savile, born in Consort Terrace, in the Burley area of Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, was the youngest of seven children (his elder siblings were Mary, Marjory, Vincent, John, Joan, and Christina) in a Roman Catholic family.

[39] On 30 July 2006, he co-hosted the final weekly edition, ending it with the words "It's number one, it's still Top of the Pops", before turning off the studio lights after the closing credits.

[41] In the early 1960s, Savile co-hosted (with Pete Murray) the televised New Musical Express Poll Winners' Concert, held annually at the Empire Pool in Wembley, with acts such as the Beatles, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Joe Brown and the Bruvvers, the Who, and many others.

In August 1988, he was appointed by junior health minister Edwina Currie[61] chair of an interim task force overseeing the management of Broadmoor Hospital, after its board members had been suspended.

Savile won on 11 July 1989; News Group paid his legal costs, and he received an apology from editors Kelvin MacKenzie and Patsy Chapman.

[88] His work with Stoke Mandeville Hospital also made Savile a suitable figure to whom the Prince could turn "for advice on navigating Britain's health authorities".

In 1999, Charles visited Savile's Glen Coe home for a private meal and reportedly sent him gifts on his 80th birthday and a note reading: "Nobody will ever know what you have done for this country, Jimmy.

[90] Savile acted as an unofficial adviser to Prince Charles, who sought his advice on a number of occasions on how the royal family ought to interact with the public and media.

In his autobiography, he claimed he had had many sexual relations with women, and that "there have been trains and, with apologies to the hit parade, boats and planes (I am a member of the 40,000 ft club) and bushes and fields, corridors, doorways, floors, chairs, slag heaps, desks, and probably everything except the celebrated chandelier and ironing board.

A significant part of his career and public life involved working with children and young people, including visiting schools and hospital wards.

[110] Former Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd vocalist John Lydon alluded to sordid conduct committed by Savile, as well as suppression of widely held knowledge about such activity, in an October 1978 interview recorded for BBC Radio 1.

Savile's reply was that, as he worked in the pop music business, "the young girls in question don't gather round me because of me – it's because I know the people they love, the stars...

[124] In 2007, Savile was interviewed under caution by police investigating an allegation of indecent assault in the 1970s at the now-closed Duncroft Approved School for Girls near Staines, Surrey, where he was a regular visitor.

[125][126] In March 2008, Savile started legal proceedings against The Sun, which had linked him in several articles to child abuse at the Jersey children's home Haut de la Garenne.

[129] In a 2009 interview with his biographer, Savile defended viewers of child pornography, including pop star and convicted sex offender Gary Glitter.

He argued that viewers "didn't do anything wrong but they are then demonised", and described Glitter as a celebrity being unfairly vilified for watching "dodgy films" in the privacy of his home: "Gary... has not tried to sell 'em, not tried to show them in public or anything like that.

[88] Arbiter added that during his regular visits to Charles's office at St James's Palace, Savile would "do the rounds of the young ladies taking their hands and rubbing his lips all the way up their arms.

George Entwistle – at that time the Director of BBC Vision – who had been told about the plan to broadcast the Newsnight item, was described by the review as "unnecessarily cautious, and an opportunity was lost.

[11] The documentary, presented by Mark Williams-Thomas, a consultant on the original Newsnight investigation, revealed claims by up to 10 women, including one aged under 14 at the time, that they had been molested or raped by Savile during the 1960s and 1970s.

The Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle, apologised for what had happened, and on 16 October 2012 appointed former High Court judge Dame Janet Smith to review the culture and practices of the BBC during the time Savile worked there;[141] and Nick Pollard, a former Sky News executive, was appointed to look at why the Newsnight investigation into Savile's activities was dropped shortly before transmission in December 2011.

[151] In January 2013, a joint report by the NSPCC and Metropolitan Police, Giving Victims a Voice, stated that 450 people had made complaints against Savile, the period of alleged abuse stretching from 1955 to 2009 and the ages of the complainants at the times of the assaults ranging from 8 to 47.

[154] Former professional wrestler Adrian Street described in a November 2013 interview how "Savile used to go on and on about the young girls who'd wait in line for him outside his dressing room ...

"[155] During the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in March 2019, it was reported that Robert Armstrong, the head of the Honours Committee, had resisted attempts by Margaret Thatcher to award Savile a knighthood in the 1980s, due to concerns about his private life.

Lawson ended: the true story is his victims, and how the BBC, Department of Health, Conservative party, Catholic church, police forces, local councils and libel law let them down.

[164] The Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust and the Jimmy Savile Stoke Mandeville Hospital Trust, two registered charities founded in his name to fight "poverty and sickness and other charitable purposes" announced they were too closely tied to his name to be sustainable and would close and distribute their funds to other charities, so as to avoid harm to beneficiaries from future media attention.

[172][173] In 2012, Richard Harrison, a long-serving psychiatric nurse at Broadmoor Hospital, said that Savile had long been regarded by staff as "a man with a severe personality disorder and a liking for children."

Today's reports show that in reality he was a sickening and prolific sexual abuser who repeatedly exploited the trust of a nation for his own vile purposes.

It covered the life and career of Savile, his history of committing sexual abuse, and the scandal that occurred after his death in 2011, when numerous complaints were raised about his behaviour.

[157] In October 2020 the BBC announced a television mini-series with the working title The Reckoning, intended to recount Savile's rise to fame and the sexual abuse scandal that emerged after his death.