British TV personality Jimmy Savile, who died in 2011, was a sexual predator who abused hundreds of victims on a scale that is "unprecedented" in Britain, according to a comprehensive police report on the disgraced celebrity. The report by a team that included 30 detectives found that Savile exploited "the vulnerable or star-struck for his sexual gratification."
The case received widespread attention on Oct. 4, 2012, when British broadcaster ITV aired a program in which five women said they had been abused by Savile in the 1970s. Three of them said the abuse occurred at BBC facilities.
The accusations led to the creation of a task force, named Operation Yewtree, the day after the program aired. It also sparked tumult at the BBC, where Savile worked between 1965 and 2006.
The arrival of the report three months after the ITV broadcast in which the women made their accusations against Savile. The report is titled "Giving Victims A Voice." Here are some of its findings:
450 people came forward with information related to Jimmy Savile.
214 crimes were formally recorded, spanning 28 jurisdictions.
The reported abuses occurred between 1955 and 2009, most of them in Leeds and London.
82 percent of those who came forward are female.
73 percent of Savile's victims were under age 18; 27 percent were adults.
The victims' ages at the time of the abuse ranged from 8 to 47.
"It is now clear that Savile was hiding in plain sight and using his celebrity status and fundraising activity to gain uncontrolled access to vulnerable people across six decades," the report's authors wrote. Police say "the locations where victims report being abused include 14 medical establishments (hospitals, mental care establishments and a hospice)."
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