Jimmy Savile Newsnight journalists attack BBC over 'anti-victim' Panorama investigation

Reporter Daniel Foggo speaks to abuse victim 'David' on Tuesday night's Panorama

The journalists behind Newsnight’s blocked exposé of Jimmy Savile have attacked the BBC’s decision to air what they called an “anti-victim” Panorama investigation into alleged child sex abuse by a VIP paedophile ring.

Almost two million people watched The VIP Paedophile Ring: What’s the Truth? on Tuesday night, which sought to debunk claims of a network of abusers at Westminster.

It centred on allegations of child sex abuse that took place largely at two venues – the Dolphin Square block of flats in Pimlico, central London, and the Elm Guest House in Barnes, south-west London. It included suggestions that some of the complaints against the late former Home Secretary Lord Brittan, among others, were dubious.

But police and victims’ groups complained of the possible effect on other child sex abuse victims who are considering coming forward. And Meirion Jones, the former Newsnight producer whose reports about Savile’s years of then undocumented abuse were pulled from broadcast in 2011, said the “anti-victim Panorama” was “absurd”.  (more...)

Jimmy Savile Newsnight journalists attack BBC over 'anti-victim' Panorama investigation

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The “VIP” Panorama programme – a classic case of smears and selective reporting