Noel Edmonds on Jimmy Savile: 'It's wrong to entirely blame culture of BBC – he was in deep with the Royals and Mrs Thatcher'

The Channel 4 presenter says he “never liked” Savile

Noel Edmonds claims that it wasn’t only the BBC who were taken in by Jimmy Savile.

The Deal Or No Deal presenter said that the royal family and Margaret Thatcher also failed to recognise Savile’s sex abuse crimes.

“What transpired was unspeakable, but it’s wrong to entirely blame the culture of the BBC,” said Edmonds.

Savile was in deep with the Royals, with Mrs Thatcher, with the hospitals and with Broadmoor. There’s a whole establishment that let him into its heart. Not just the BBC.”

Edmonds - who first rose to fame as a BBC Radio 1 presenter - before becoming a television presenter, says he never liked Savile.

Reports and reviews have found that the late DJ and presenter is said to have sexually abused numerous victims, aged between five and 75 over five decades. Some of the abuse is thought to have taken place in hospitals, including Broadmoore psychiatric hospital. It is also claimed that he abused corpses.

Edmonds questioned Savile’s position of power at the BBC.

“I never liked him. I found it insulting the way the rest of us would turn up to functions at the BBC on time, dressed in suits and he’d turn up late in a gold lamé tracksuit,” he told the Daily Mail.

“I also thought he was a s*** broadcaster. He had no command of the English language. He couldn’t speak properly. He’d come out with those awful expressions like, 'Howzabout that then?' and I used to wonder why he even had a job.”

He also said that the crimes of DJ Dave Lee Travis could not be compared to the “unspeakable” crimes of Savile.

In October, Travis was given a three-month suspended sentence after Judge Anthony Leonard QC, said the DJ had committed “an intentional and unpleasant sexual assault” on a researcher working on the TV programme The Mrs Merton Show.

“He was never the brightest spark, but he’s not a nasty guy. There was no bad vibe about him. I was never aware of anything remotely sleazy about Dave,” said Edmonds.

“OK, he was possibly misguided, but you can’t talk about him in the same breath as Savile. Savile was the absolute depths of depravation. That’s a whole different story.”

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