Jimmy Savile: BBC Boss Is Grilled By MPs

Why Child Abuse Goes Unchallenged

Updated: 4:38am UK, Tuesday 23 October 2012

By Peter Saunders, Chief Executive, NAPAC

I founded and am now privileged to work for NAPAC, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood.

We run the UK's only national free phone support line for adult survivors. We receive letters and emails and we run support groups.

We are a small charity but we have helped thousands in the past and we face the mammoth task of trying to help the thousands coming forward as a result of the Jimmy Savile outrage.

An advertising agency has just made us a poster which in a way sums up why the abuse of our children has gone unchallenged for generation after generation.

Abuse is just too painful for many of us to talk about. Children who speak out are often labelled liars or attention seekers. Many will then keep that secret for the rest of their life.

People who witness abuse, or almost see it..."whoops, I didn't see or want to know about that" really hope it will go away and abusers are never going to admit their vile crimes. And why would they? Abusers ensure there are rarely any witnesses. So children are easily silenced.

And as the Savile allegations have shown, many of his own colleagues who "knew" what was going on kept quiet about it and said nothing.

As one major BBC Radio voice said a few weeks ago "nobody messed with Jimmy". If his colleagues recognised and were intimidated by this man, think how impossible it would have been for a child or young person to speak out?

But I think it would be dangerous to blame the BBC or the 'culture' of the day. Abuse and rape have never been acceptable and I think it is dangerous to somehow equate the alleged permissiveness of the 60's and 70's with these crimes.

The Catholic Church tried to blame their on-going crisis of abusing priests on this ("the 60's").  We must not be fooled. Most abuse occurs within families and they rarely want to confront it.

We are a society which has turned a blind eye to the awful things done to children right under our noses - apart from the occasional hysterical outburst when some "monster paedophile" snatches and murders a child.

Mercifully this is extremely rare and children have always been in more danger under their own roof than anywhere else. That's hard for anyone to stomach, surely? But Savile has got a nation stirred.

I think we are at a turning point in history. I strongly believe that society, the majority who have not suffered abuse, are starting to understand the impact of this heinous and life changing crime.

I have lost count of how many journalists I have spoken to since this Savile revelation and I truly believe they are beginning to 'get it'.

Even more so when you mention..."do you have children"? Would you have wanted Savile or any other kind of child abuser getting his (or her) hands on your child? People start to think.

They start to realise that the greatest threat to this country isn't the banks or the energy companies (okay some might argue they are too) but it is people who hurt our children.

They are sowing the seeds for millions of people to grow up feeling worthless, depressed and of course, in the rarest of cases, very capable of hurting others.

When I was starting out on the path to set up this charity 16 years ago, Sky News' were the first broadcaster to give me a voice. This was swiftly followed by the BBC.

We haven't had much of a voice in the intervening years but I trust and hope that we are now all going to work together to put an end to this curse in our midst.

Yesterday I spotted that NSPCC are recruiting a new Chief Executive. I'm going to apply. A past CEO of that huge charity once told me that he really thought it was time a survivor was put in charge! I agree.

I know I won't be offered the job but if I was one of the first things I would do would be to hold a press conference announcing my plans to suggest that NAPAC merge with NSPCC - then we'd see some serious changes to how we treat our kids!

And I would hope Sky would be right there to witness that important little bit of history. Following that event I am confident our children will be a little bit safer.

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