My friend, the paedophile: why didn't agony aunt Anne Atkins report what she knows?

Portrait of woman writing letter at desk (Getty images)

As the Jimmy Savile / BBC / Newsnight scandal continues to expand like a mushroom cloud, agony aunt Anne Atkins has added to the headlines by revealing to the Mail On Sunday that she decided not to report a predatory paedophile, because he's a friend of the family.

In an attempt to explain how a man like Jimmy Savile might have got away with his alleged criminal behaviour for so long, Atkins describes how a friend told her he had been sexually abused by another, older, mutual friend, a man who "was then, and to some extent still is, in a position of authority over other teenagers."

So why didn't she report him? "The really shocking thing is, it simply never occurred to me," she writes.