Savile Sex Abuse Victims To Seek Compensation

The lawyer for more than 50 of Jimmy Savile's abuse victims has said they will seek compensation from the BBC, NHS, the TV presenter's estate and other organisations.

The full scale of the late TV presenter's 54-year campaign of abuse was detailed in a joint police and NSPCC report on Friday.

It revealed that Savile's youngest victim was an eight-year-old boy and that he also abused seriously ill children.

There are now 214 criminal offences recorded against his name, including 34 rapes.

The Department of Health and BBC are just some of the organisations embroiled in the scandal and they could now face having to make substantial payouts.

They have launched internal investigations into how the entertainer slipped under the radar and was allowed to abuse on what police now believe was an unprecedented scale.

A lawyer representing dozens of Savile victims, Liz Dux, said all would be pursuing civil claims for compensation.

The crimes spanned from 1955 to 2009, covering his entire career at the BBC, and included sexually touching a teenage girl at the final recording of Top Of The Pops in 2006.

Savile abused patients at Leeds General Infirmary, where he worked between 1965 and 1995, and at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire, between 1965 and 1988.

He also targeted residents at children's home Duncroft School between 1970 and 1978.

Savile's victims expressed shock and anger at the length of time it has taken to expose the entertainer's predatory behaviour and that nobody attempted to put an end to the suffering.

A total of 450 people have come forward alleging sexual abuse against Savile since October, of whom 73% were children at the time of the offences.

Ms Dux said her clients were suing Savile's estate and would also pursue claims against the organisations responsible for where the abuse took place.

However, she insisted they were not doing it for the money.

She said: "Compensation is the only thing we can really do for them, but that is not their particular motivation for doing this.

"It is for getting their stories out there to get them believed and to prevent it from happening again. You don't do it for the money.

"All of them have claims against Savile's estate and in addition the BBC and various hospitals and so on where the abuse took place."

Ms Dux said the claims would be placed "on a moratorium" until the various inquiries into Savile's abuse had finished.