Lynn Barber recalls ‘harrowing’ moment with Jimmy Savile: ‘Now I shudder’

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Veteran journalist Lynn Barber has recalled an encounter with Jimmy Savile that makes her “shudder”.

After the TV presenter’s death in 2011, hundreds of survivors came forward with stories of abuse by Savile, who used his work at the BBC and at hospitals, prisons and charities to conceal his paedophilia.

A new Netflix documentary, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, landed on the platform earlier this month. It features an interview with Barber, who met Savile twice. She has now also written about her experiences with him.

She writes in The Telegraph: “The first time I met him, in 1982, was at Stoke Mandeville. I wanted to interview him for the Sunday Express magazine, and he insisted I should come to the hospital.

“I found it harrowing because so many of the patients were young – they had fallen off a horse or a motorbike and suddenly they were paraplegics.

“As we passed the bed of one very young, very pretty, paralysed girl, he stroked her hair and said: ‘Now I can have my evil way with you, my dear!’ At the time I thought it was a joke in poor taste, but now I shudder.”

Barber goes on to explain that she interviewed him again in 1990 for The Independent, when he had just been given a knighthood.

She had heard the rumours that he “liked little girls”, so asked him about it. Barber writes: “He went into his ‘Now then, now then…’ patter, before delivering what seemed to me a perfectly plausible reply.

“He said he was often surrounded by young girls because he worked in the pop industry and they thought he could get them access to their idols. They weren’t interested in him, but in a possible introduction to Wet Wet Wet or whoever. I believed him, and dropped the subject.”

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Barber tells her story, and the impact it had on bringing Savile to justice, in the documentary, out now on Netflix. Read The Independent’s three-star review here.

If you’re worried about a child, even if you’re unsure, you can contact professional counsellors at the NSPCC for help, advice and support by emailing help@nspcc.org.uk or calling 0808 800 5000. For those aged 18 or under, Childline offers free, confidential advice and support whatever your concern and whenever you need help. Call 0800 1111 or Contact Childline.

If you have been raped or sexually assaulted, you can contact your nearest Rape Crisis organisation for specialist, independent and confidential support. For more information, visit their website here.