How I Caught Jimmy Savile | Minutes With | LADbible TV

I remember the Metropolitan Police senior investigating officer at New Scotland Yard contacted me and said we estimate there are probably around 30 victims. I went now. I said 500 victims. I said that's probably what it's more about, I think, when I initially joined. police service I probably did what a lot of young people wanted to do was drive fast cars with blue lights and then I quickly realized that, although it was fun for a short period of time, it wasn't really where I wanted to be. I wanted to be a detective and I wanted to investigate serious crimes and that's where I went for two years.

I was in the division control room answering phones assigning units and that gives you a great opportunity because what it teaches you is about how to manage, uh, develop. case stories as incidents occur and then shortly after I moved to a vulnerable unit which looked after the most vulnerable in society in our area which were young children and then I moved to child protection and then cid, because? You left the place. I got to a point where I had done everything I wanted to do. I faced very serious crimes: child abuse. Horrible offenses against children. Murders.

I worked with the family ladies and officers during many murders and it took a toll on me. I think I got into a position where I either stayed in the police service for the rest of my life or my career or I took on a challenge and did something else and went from being a police officer to being an investigator, which is what I do now. I know the difference between being a police officer and being a private investigator. Well, the big difference between being a police officer and being an investigator is that I can't arrest people, but as a police officer, of course, you have certain powers.

I don't have any powers now. My biggest power that I have now is the power to persuasion in my mouth and being able to communicate with people and in fact, in many of the cases that I do now I have to get to a point where I get enough evidence, I give it back to the police and then I say: look, please investigate , take this to another level, but the advantage of being an investigator is that some people don't like talking to the police and so sometimes they tell me. Things they wouldn't tell the police All these horrible things have taken their toll with what you said.

Why then did you decide to continue investigating your private life? You know I'm passionate about what I do. I wake up every morning driving. The job I do is go and try to get answers from people, try to solve cases, but I'm also smart in how I do it. You know, I use little tricks that maybe I couldn't pull off in the police service. Things I do that wouldn't be criminal but certainly wouldn't be ethical. I am always on the right side of the law, but very close to it. We often place listening devices in people's homes and listen to them for command. to hear what's going on, maybe we'll even make a phone call to them, sometimes we'll put a listing device in a house, then we'll make a call to the house, we'll generate some kind of discussion, so you can Well, we'll make a phone call saying I want to talk to such and such in relation to a murder, that will obviously spark a conversation once we get off the phone inside the house and then we can hear what is being discussed.

We will often use couriers. then we will send couriers to houses and the couriers will allow us to get a forwarding address because people are often not suspicious. You know, the Amazon package appears before Mr. Jones at a certain address and the person opens the door and says, "Oh, he's not here." Since you live in this or that bright, the other things we do sometimes is put trackers on packages, so we may well send a package to an address, but we know that person won't tell you where it is now, but they will. will do. go see that person, especially if he's on the run or wants him, so the tracker goes in the car with him and then we can see where they take that package to the individual and then we have them that way.

There is a lot of surveillance on people, so we will observe them, we will film them, we will follow them on foot. Following people on foot is always very interesting. I always tell people if we're doing surveillance, maybe it's Someone who hasn't done much surveillance before, just be normal, they don't suspect you, it's amazing what people do, which was probably the biggest case, yeah , so I'm traveling back from León and talking to my producer. He was there filming. and he said, have you ever heard anything about Jimmy Savile being a predatory pedophile? And I said no, I said it's strange, I said it's very strange, but I never heard him say well, he was investigated by the police, so I said, well, well.

I'll take a look at it and see that Jimmy Savile in his time was probably the best known famous individual when it came to television in the country, at the time of his heyday there were only two broadcasters, itv and bbc, and he was huge, He was untouchable and that's why the fear that existed around him still remained even though he died, he had a legacy on him and that's why they were incredibly nervous, particularly nervous about trying to do something with someone who, dead, couldn't defend themselves. and I totally understand that anyway I established that he was investigated by Surrey Police, which was actually my force, but it was after I left; otherwise I knew it but it was after I left anyway it got to a position where BBC newsnight decided they were going to do a program and with them I've been filming because I used to do reports for them and then They decided that they weren't going to do it and simply because they decided that the police had carried out their investigation correctly, there was no criticism that could be applied to them that they knew of and therefore there was no story to it and I immediately thought what about? you are talking?

Of course, the story isn't whether the police did it. the investigation or how they did it, but Jimmy Savile is a pedophile, that's the story, so I said can I continue with it? So I went to uh itv and said look I have this story and of course his response was yes how. on earth you're going to say that and um and I said listen, it needs to be told and at this point he just died and I said listen, there's something here, there's definitely something here and the executive producer at the time was like, what's up?

I track down these people and they give me information and one of the things about being an investigator is that you talk to everyone and when you talk to them, you say, Is there anyone else I need to talk to? Then I follow up with them and then before you know it. You started with three or four people and now suddenly you have 14 or 15 people, you go to them, ask them and that's what we did, we started locating all these people, we talked to them and little by little we started building. a picture that he had sexually abused quite a number of children and they were obviously now adults, we went back to itv and said this and itv again incredibly nervous and I totally understand why, but as the evidence started to pile up and it became more and stronger. and louder we said listen this has to be we have to bring this to light we have to let the public decide how it feels to be investigating something like this this

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yes he dated the prime minister yes yes and you are discovering these things and you are going to say : I know this man is a pedophile and they still consider him that way, yeah, I think as I started digging in the early days, my mom called me and said, Mark, you?

I really think you should be doing this. There was a big story on the BBC. The BBC leads covered it and talked about me doing this show and there was a phone and I heard the phone and people were being really horrible to me, how did they do it? I dare say something about this man, he is dead, he cannot defend himself. I remember she was saying, Mark, do you really want to take care of this? And they sent me an incendiary device. Someone sent me an incendiary device that was sent. to myself on itv in birmingham which is where the whole post goes and I remember getting a phone call one day saying, mark, they've sent you an incendiary device.

I think I remember things were fine, what does that mean? and they took out the police. The firefighters got there and found that it was capable of causing quite significant damage, we never know who, we don't know who sent that, we don't know where they would come from, but anyone who knows. I know, you just give me something that is difficult to do, you tell me I can't do something and I will do it and I will do it and I get a result and I remember being so determined to do it even when it was difficult, we had a real challenge commissioning it.

It was amazing, but it was really difficult and I remember I kept telling my producer on the tube that we can't let this go, we have to get it out there. I remember at one point he was thinking, do you know what happens if I can't get the station to go with him? Can we finance it? Can we get a rich person to fund it so we can publish it? It was really us, we put our lives into it. And I remember telling her and other people that if we do this right, it will make a big difference, but if we do it wrong and people don't believe us, we will never work in television.

Once again, we will be excluded from everything we do and broadcast day was a defining moment and it was a defining moment that many commentators have referred to because it really changed the perspective of television. topical and was probably the biggest change: the title change came about when it was revealed that this man who was untouchable was clearly a predatory pedophile and the praise we received the next morning from the press was phenomenal and then it resulted in a huge investigation Police I remember the Metropolitan Police Senior Investigating Officer at New Scotland Yard contacted me and said we estimate there are probably around 30 victims, oh and no I said 500 victims, I said that's probably what it is most, I don't think so.

I've been investigating Savile for a year and he went, oh my God, he said well, okay, he said, I can't challenge that mark, he said, you've obviously been working on it, let's see, fast forward 12 months, over 500 victims. was featured and was on national front pages for 41 consecutive days, which led to the resignation of the director general of the BBC, led to my program and myself being mentioned in the House of Commons in relation to the impact of the program and subsequently changed the The way police, prosecution and children's services work in the UK gave a voice to so many people and not only led to Maine, you know, other important and famous people being arrested and prosecuted, such as Rolf Harris, Max Clifford, but it also resulted in a tidal wave effect throughout the country and, in fact, throughout the world there were people who came forward and talked about it and took the local scout master builder throughout the country to be arrested and I firmly believe it had a massive impact moving forward in generating a vision of trust in victims to speak out that ultimately brought down Weinstein and Epstein.

You must be immensely proud. Yes I am. You know, people tell me you know what you did was amazing and my response to that is: I just did what I do I don't think I did anything special I just worked hard for it the people who created the title effect for

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that has reached everyone are those five brave women who allowed me to tell their story and if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be here now telling you about savile and I truly believe that savile would never have been exposed every time they arrest you they have to interrogate you they have to say something just like you're not under arrest for this, um, you don't have to say anything, but if you don't say something that you can later rely on in court, this can hurt your defense because they charged me with 80 different crimes because they basically made every hack It was a different crime.

They were supposed to arrest me 80 times but they were only able to finish arresting me about 40 times because they could only keep me in custody for 24 hours.