tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/operation-yewtree-5707/articlesOperation Yewtree – The Conversation2016-10-03T15:01:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/664212016-10-03T15:01:54Z2016-10-03T15:01:54ZLouis Theroux’s new Jimmy Savile documentary is a horrible misstep<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140101/original/image-20161003-20243-1fhef2k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Theroux the looking glass. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bbcpictures.co.uk/image/11888212?collection=11888212+11888225+11888238+11888199&back=L3NlYXJjaC9zaW1wbGU%2Fc2VhcmNoJTVCZ2xvYmFsJTVEPXRoZXJvdXgmYW1wO3NlYXJjaCU1QnN1Ym1pdCU1RD1TZWFyY2g%3D">BBC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://vimeo.com/76002148">original</a> BBC documentary by Louis Theroux in 2000 about Jimmy Savile, the former British TV star thought to have <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/01/jimmy-savile-panorama-study-_n_5429071.html">sexually abused at least 500 women and children</a>, was uncomfortable viewing even before his crimes were common knowledge. Watching with the benefit of hindsight, one moment that really sticks out in When Louis Met Jimmy is when Theroux finds a notepad with his ex-directory phone number on it. “There’s nothing I cannot get,” Savile tells him.</p>
<p>Theroux revisits the moment in his new documentary, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07yc9zh/louis-theroux-savile">Louis Theroux: Savile</a>. It is a statement of Savile’s power that helps us understand why his victims – a number of whom Theroux interviews in the film – found it so difficult to speak out while Savile was alive. Some are clearly still haunted by their failure to do so.</p>
<p>Theroux mostly acts as witness to their testimonies, aware of his own complicity in the myth-making that ensured their silence for so long. Yet as much as these victims deserve to be heard, the way their testimonies are framed is troubling. Louis Theroux: Savile is meant to be about the relationship between these two men. By persistently asking Savile’s victims how he got away with it, Theroux ends up effectively implicating them. </p>
<p>To be fair, there is never any question that he accepts their accounts of feeling some responsibility. But all the same, allowing them their moments of self-blame without making any comment leaves the viewer with the sense that their silence and his ignorance are equivalent. It’s a lost opportunity to reflect on the structures which supported Savile and effectively silenced these women. </p>
<h2>Shattered histories</h2>
<p>Theroux also confronts three women who in different ways question the accounts of Savile that have emerged. First up is Janet Cope, Savile’s PA of nearly 30 years, who echoes much of what she has said in the press before. Savile emerges from her description as controlling, manipulative and cold. But ultimately, she defends him. “He didn’t do it,” she says categorically, noting that the allegations relate to a “different era” when she was “grateful if somebody gave me a pat on the bum”. </p>
<p>Another interviewee is Gill Stribling-Wright, a researcher and producer on Savile’s BBC shows who knew him for decades. Stribling-Wright tells Theroux she hasn’t read Dame Janet Smith’s <a href="http://www.damejanetsmithreview.com">report</a> into Savile at the BBC. What, she asks, would she do with it if she did? </p>
<p>The sense of the psychic trauma inflicted upon those close to Savile is even sharper in the account of Sylvia Nicol. Nicol worked with him at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire, south England, where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/26/jimmy-savile-abuse-stoke-mandeville-hospital-inquiry">his abuses</a> have become notorious. She still has photos of Savile half-hidden in her home, and a large Lego bust of him intact in her garage. “I’m a victim” she tells Theroux, “a victim of losing those memories”.</p>
<p>These interviews raise difficult and uncomfortable questions about the private legacy of a disgraced public figure. With Savile now so thoroughly expunged from the archive that the BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29308337">apologised</a> after a clip of him was mistakenly shown on a Top of the Pops rerun, how do those who cared for him, who worked with him, whose lives were intertwined with his, make sense of their own histories now? </p>
<h2>Questionable decisions</h2>
<p>At the same time, some serious gaps undermine Theroux’s efforts to understand how he (and others) were duped. Most seriously, Savile appears as a complete one off. There is no mention of the broader <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11393099/Operation-Yewtree-The-successes-and-failures.html">Operation Yewtree</a> enquiry into celebrity sexual abuse, nor the convictions of the likes of Rolf Harris, Max Clifford and Stuart Hall and the other arrests that followed the Savile revelations. </p>
<p>The new documentary acknowledges that the Savile investigations resulted in major enquiries in the NHS, BBC and the police, but Theroux interviews no representatives. He focuses almost entirely on individual and not institutional culpability.</p>
<p>That the individuals in focus are all women is meanwhile deeply troubling. The structure pits woman against woman, moving between the victim testimonies and the interviews with Cope, Stribling-Wright and Nicol. </p>
<p>What about all the men who benefited from their connection with Savile? Who abused alongside him. Who eulogised him on his death. Who defended him by their own inaction within the NHS, the BBC, and the police. </p>
<p>That Theroux does not find a single man willing to be interviewed gives a very distorted picture. If none of Savile’s male friends, family or colleagues were willing, that in itself would require comment. Theroux’s own footage from his 2000 documentary shows at least two of Savile’s male friends. Despite the liberal revisiting of that original, neither appear here.</p>
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<p>The one other man who does appear is Tony Hall, director general of the BBC, speaking at the release of Smith’s report in February. Hall is removed, watched by Theroux on television in a press conference at the time. Unlike some of Theroux’s female witnesses, Hall has no personal links with Savile and is apologetic and willing to acknowledge responsibility. </p>
<p>Theroux’s documentary barely scratches the surface of the questions about BBC failures raised by Smith, as Mark Lawson, The Guardian’s arts critic, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/sep/29/when-louis-theroux-met-jimmy-savile-again-gullible-bbc">already pointed out</a>. But neither Lawson nor Theroux acknowledge Smith’s fundamental point about the “macho culture” at the BBC that enabled Savile’s abusive career. </p>
<p>There is nothing macho about Theroux’s self-examinations, but in choosing to only place women in the dock alongside him over a 75-minute documentary, he has inadvertently contributed to a culture in which women are held responsible for men’s violence against them. It is a horrible misstep. It suggests there is still a lot of work to be done to unravel the <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexist-coverage-of-jimmy-savile-story-is-hiding-in-plain-sight-just-like-he-did-55457">unthinking sexism</a> which helped him to abuse with impunity.</p>
<p>The only interviewee to directly challenge the blame implicit in Theroux’s questioning is Angela Levin, a former Daily Mail writer, introduced as the source of the rumours he originally heard about Savile. “Don’t blame this on me,” she asserts. </p>
<p>Certainly there are as many important questions to be asked about individual responsibility as that of the institutions in this whole saga. But by asking these questions only of women this documentary contributes to the problem it attempts to unravel. And it lets abusive men, and the institutions which enable them, off the hook.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Boyle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Filmmaker’s mea culpa is admirable but badly flawed.Karen Boyle, Chair in Feminist Media Studies, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/353512014-12-10T18:29:25Z2014-12-10T18:29:25ZTime to finish off Page 3 – and tackle #everydaysexism – by handing out a few ‘prizes’<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/dec/09/no-more-page-3-step-up-their-campaign-against-the-sun">contortions</a> of The Sun newspaper against mounting opposition to its notorious Page 3 topless women would be laughable if they did not represent a much wider problem. With even glamour queen Katie Price apparently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/dec/08/katie-price-end-of-era-supersized-back-to-32b-breast-reduction">throwing in the towel</a> and having her breast size reduced, you wonder how many senior Sun executives seriously want to keep it going. Even they can’t have entirely missed the dawning of the new millennium and 40 years of advances in women’s equality. </p>
<p>Page 3 dates from a time when Benny Hill, Les Dawson and Jimmy Savile were the acceptable faces of a male-dominated culture where women just needed just to “calm down dear” and take a joke. As the No More Page 3 campaigners say, this isn’t just about getting rid of a sexist image in a newspaper. This is part of women’s “wider struggle for better representation, equality and human rights”. </p>
<h2>Everywhere you look …</h2>
<p>British society is slowly wakening up to pervasive <a href="http://everydaysexism.com/">everyday sexism</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/feb/14/rape-culture-damage-it-does-everyday-sexism">rape culture</a>, the <a href="http://gaildines.com/pornland/pornland-about-the-book/">normalisation of pornography</a> and epidemic proportions of <a href="http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham">sexual exploitation</a>, gender-based violence and sexual abuse – both here and across the world. Post-<a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140122145147/http:/www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/">Leveson</a>, how long can fair and balanced journalism co-exist with the continued stereotyping and objectification of women? You don’t have look far beyond Page 3 to see the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2839227/Ched-Evans-defended-Irish-PFA-say-convicted-rapist-innocent.html">Ched Evans</a> row, the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2839227/Ched-Evans-defended-Irish-PFA-say-convicted-rapist-innocent.html">Grand Theft Auto Rape Mod</a>, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/nov/27/coca-colas-new-milk-adverts-are-unoriginal-and-tediously-sexist">Fairlife milk adverts</a> and countless more.</p>
<p>The wider picture? It certainly won’t help that this is a country that was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/15/un-special-rapporteur-manjoo-yarls-wood-home-office">recently described</a> by a senior UN official as having an “in your face sexist culture”. Fewer than <a href="http://ukfeminista.org.uk/take-action/facts-and-statistics-on-gender-inequality/">one quarter of</a> reporters on national dailies are women. Research has shown that men outnumber women as television and radio experts by four to one. The TV industry’s unwillingness to put older women in front of the cameras is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22682588">meanwhile legend</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66908/original/image-20141210-6027-cxtie7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An imbalanced society.</span>
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<h2>Light amid darkness</h2>
<p>Yet if this is the mountain still to climb, we are arguably at a slightly higher altitude than we once were. Part of this is changing times – The Sun’s management at least sounds awkward defending Page 3 these days, and it ditched the page in Ireland with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/feb/04/page-3-ireland">little effect</a> to circulation. Its UK days also look numbered. </p>
<p>The atmosphere has also arguably been changed by the slew of sexual abuse scandals that have hit the media in the last two or three years. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/operation-yewtree/">Operation Yewtree</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11057647/Rotherham-sex-abuse-scandal-1400-children-exploited-by-Asian-gangs-while-authorities-turned-a-blind-eye.html">Rotherham</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/rochdale-child-sex-ring">Rochdale</a> and the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10950127/Westminster-paedophile-ring-allegations-timeline.html">Westminster affair</a> have all created a sense in which practices that used to be tolerated are now being confronted. The media has been shamed by its own past acquiescence and has not shied away from full coverage that gives the impact on the victims its proper due. </p>
<p>So how do we make these steps forward permanent? Unrelenting campaigns from No More Page 3 to Everyday Sexism are obviously part of the answer. Scotland might also have something to offer here, through the work of anti-abuse charity <a href="http://www.zerotolerance.org.uk/">Zero Tolerance</a>. In 2013 it launched the first <a href="http://writetoendvaw.com/">Write to End Violence Against Women Awards</a> and published a <a href="http://www.vawpreventionscotland.org.uk/sites/default/files/HWC_V5.pdf">media guide</a> to promote responsible journalism and reporting of all forms of violence against women. The group also awards an annual wooden spoon for the worst examples of sexist reporting. The 2014 award winners will be announced on the evening of 10 December. </p>
<p>It is a reminder that we could do with a high-profile version of these awards for the whole of the UK. If we can give large amounts of coverage to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/12/bad-sex-award-2014_n_6145074.html">Bad Sex Awards</a> in writing, we need exactly the same approach for writing that degrades women. To give others a chance of course, Page 3 would need a category all of its own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anni was a judge at this year's Zero Tolerance Write to End Violence Against Women Awards</span></em></p>The contortions of The Sun newspaper against mounting opposition to its notorious Page 3 topless women would be laughable if they did not represent a much wider problem. With even glamour queen Katie Price…Anni Donaldson, Honorary Research Fellow Domestic Abuse, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/309792014-08-27T15:07:04Z2014-08-27T15:07:04ZComplicity and conspiracy in Rotherham should teach us how to handle future cases<p>The <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rotherham-child-abuse-report-finds-1400-children-subjected-to-appalling-sexual-exploitation-within-16year-period-9691825.html">confirmation</a> that 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation over a 16 year period in Rotherham forms part of a wider picture of similar events. </p>
<p>The Catholic Church has still not worked out how to come clean about the wrongdoing in its midst without terminally destroying its reputation. Meanwhile, abuse by celebrities – including Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, Max Clifford, Jonathan King – has already created a set of deeply disturbing case studies. The British government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/butler-sloss-stands-down-but-politicians-still-fail-to-face-the-facts-on-child-sex-abuse-29115">twin inquries</a> into allegations of abuse by high-profile figures parallels a similar effort already underway in <a href="http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Australia</a>. </p>
<p>When we come to make sense of the recurring exploitation of children by their elders, conspiracy theories are tempting. Many are already wondering if something peculiar about “the establishment” enabled the paedophile rings it contained. Others have wondered if the actions of the Rotherham gang can be compared to the other cases.</p>
<p>Our reaction to these kinds of questions is distaste. It implies people act together to commit abuse because of their backgrounds so we avoid doing it. But groups of people do conspire, whether it is criminals plotting a bank robbery or journalists scheming for a salacious story. </p>
<p>When analysing the fine grain of shocking events like those that took place in Rotherham, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We would do well to continue to look at the quite mundane human processes of collusion and complicity.</p>
<p>Psychoanalysts would point to collusive processes being unconscious defences to protect ourselves from anxiety or guilt and we quite consciously fail to take needed action about a problem if doing so puts our own interests at risk. If our career is in jeopardy, we might not interfere.</p>
<p>It is clear in all the recent high-profile examples of child abuse that collusion and complicity were commonplace. In Ireland the police passed on complaints about abusive priests to church authorities, instead of investigating them, and they turned away victims reporting crimes. In Rotherham the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rotherham-child-abuse-report-calls-for-resignation-of-police-commissioner-who-headed-councils-child-safeguarding-department-9692749.html">police knew</a> about girls being abused and re-framed criminal acts with a minor as being about consensual sex. </p>
<p>In Leeds senior police officers knew of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24564933">Savile’s conduct</a> but did nothing. Elsewhere NHS managers and residential care workers allowed him repeated access to vulnerable people. In the BBC his colleagues knew of the repeated rumours but shrugged their shoulders.</p>
<p>These common psychological processes happen every day, with less serious consequences, when we turn a blind eye to discomforting events. But they also have a social context that we must acknowledge. </p>
<p>The story of Peter Righton is a prime example. Righton was a childcare expert and headed an inquiry on child abuse in Scottish children’s homes but was himself convicted of child pornography crimes and accused of abuse.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hli-iPilDII">BBC documentary</a> about Righton revealed not just interpersonal complicity but a sort of social form of amnesia. Senior and respected academic social workers confessed in the documentary that they were not simply duped by a con man. Their lack of interference was heavily influenced by the fact that Righton was gay. Fear of accusations of homophobia inflected their misjudgement.</p>
<p>Similarly, in the Rotherham scenario, caseworkers, their managers and the police were inhibited, in some part, when dealing with clear evidence of criminal victimisation, by the fear of accusations of racism.</p>
<p>Politicians on the left and right have reacted to this complicity with indignation, as have the TV journalists interrogating the new police chief in the town. But an irony can be noted here. Both politicians and BBC staff have themselves been complicit in the past about covering up child sexual abuse. So many of us are potentially implicated in turning a blind eye that finger wagging must be done with some caution.</p>
<p>For abuse to go undetected in an organised system, two things are required. The abusers need to conspire, which means they have to develop a bond of secrecy and a norm of being furtive, deceitful, bullying and manipulative, as the need arises. And those getting wind of untoward events may, for a variety of reasons, fail to act or speak out.</p>
<p>The oft quoted view from Burke that “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing …” is not only contested in origin, it is also reductive. It is not all that is necessary. Evil flourishes because people do bad things and as a result of many psychological and social phenomena that we are uncomfortable discussing. </p>
<p>We need to think carefully about what makes people act together to commit crimes of this nature. Issues of sexuality, race and social background aside, understanding how people act as a group and what stops others from taking action to stop them are vital if we are to stop cases like Rotherham from happening again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pilgrim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The confirmation that 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation over a 16 year period in Rotherham forms part of a wider picture of similar events. The Catholic Church has still not worked out…David Pilgrim, Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/282822014-06-30T14:12:01Z2014-06-30T14:12:01ZRolf Harris guilty: but what has Operation Yewtree really taught us about sexual abuse?<p>After a lengthy trial, a jury has found entertainer and TV presenter Rolf Harris guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault. On July 4 2014, he was sentenced to a custodial sentence of five years and nine months.</p>
<p>Harris’s conviction adds to the sad litany of cases of sexual abuse of girls and women by male celebrities – a list that includes TV and radio personality Stuart Hall and the publicist Max Clifford. The large majority of survivors who testified in these cases came forward following the posthumous exposure of Jimmy Savile for sexual assaults against hundreds of children and adults.</p>
<p>The Savile explosion and the subsequent Met-led Operation Yewtree have laid bare the horrifying extent and degree of Savile’s abuse, and his manipulation of those with whom he came into contact. As Peter Spindler (then the officer leading Yewtree) so powerfully and succinctly put it, Savile “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20989568">groomed a nation</a>”. </p>
<p>It appears that the unmasking of Savile has created a climate where victims of other celebrities have been able to come forward – often several decades after their abuse – confident that they will be believed and that the authorities will seek justice, on their behalf.</p>
<p>The Yewtree inquiry has provoked very strong feelings indeed. Many argue the inquiry has rightly cast a devastating spotlight on how individuals used elements of their celebrity, wealth, power and reputation not only to sexually abuse women and children, but also to prevent that abuse from being investigated. Others believe that Yewtree amounts to a <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487662/Chris-Tarrant-calls-Savile-investigation-Operation-Yewtree-witch-hunt.html">witch hunt</a> against celebrities, and the criminalisation of largely “harmless” behaviour. </p>
<p>Some in this latter group have gone on to query why these supposed victims have come forward only now, occasionally suggesting that nothing happened and that many “victims” are just <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/operation-yewtree-defaming-the-dead/14994#.U6lXbY2zBT4">trying to enrich themselves</a>.</p>
<p>However we interpret the Yewtree saga, it is undeniable large numbers of people have been abused by celebrities, who one way or another skilfully manipulated those around them to protect themselves. </p>
<p>Beyond this, there’s not a great deal more we can learn from the cases themselves. As disturbing as they are, they comprise only a tiny percentage of all sex offences – and instead of picking over their individual horrors, we should consider the much larger and more insidious problem of which they are just a small subset.</p>
<h2>Everyday problem</h2>
<p>The post-Savile celebrity sexual abuse cases follow a torrent of high-profile child sexual abuse scandals over the past 30 years, including in <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/warning-over-care-home-sexual-abuse-7905466.html">children’s homes</a>, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/05/un-denounces-vatican-child-abuse">Catholic church</a>, as well as <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1462628.stm">on-street exploitation</a> (to name just a few). Nor are Savile and his ilk the first celebrity sexual offenders. They were preceded by the pop star <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4766890.stm">Paul Gadd</a> (aka Gary Glitter), convicted of child sex offences in the 1990s and again in the 2000s, and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4388913.stm">Jonathan King</a>, jailed for seven years in 2001 for sexually abusing boys. </p>
<p>And lest we forget, the vast bulk of child sex abuse takes place in far more “mundane” settings – most child victims are abused by someone known to them, not a stranger, and around 30% of perpetrators are thought to be <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/child-sexual-abuse.aspx">members of their victims’ immediate family members</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/resourcesforprofessionals/sexualabuse/statistics_wda87833.html">most recent prevalence survey by the NSPCC</a> found 11% of young adults had experienced “contact” sexual abuse in childhood. Although this is a minority, it is clearly a very substantial number of children.</p>
<p>Our understanding of child sexual abuse has come a long way over the past 20-30 years. There are now more ways in which it can be detected, and the police are far more effective at investigating it. But once the furore over celebrity sexual abusers dissipates, then societal concern will diminish and children (and women) will continue to be sexually abused. They almost certainly were being abused as I wrote this article, and will be as you read it.</p>
<p>Still, our approach to child sex abuse, as with so many social and criminal ills, is often to shut the gate after the horse has bolted. Yes, we gnash our teeth and beat our chests when we discover abuse – but we still do little to prevent it. In short, our approach to sexual offending more generally needs a dramatic overhaul.</p>
<h2>Wake up</h2>
<p>That will require a serious long-term public awareness campaign, where every citizen is given the chance to learn about the extent and nature of sexual abuse, how its perpetrators commit their crimes, and how they avoid detection. </p>
<p>To achieve this, we must ensure that every child in the country receives adequate sex education lessons. It is ridiculous to expect children to understand and avoid sexual abuse if they haven’t been adequately taught about normal, consensual sex. An Ofsted report published last year <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22366107">found that sex education was poor in more than one-third of English schools</a>, leaving these children vulnerable to abuse.</p>
<p>But even more importantly, we urgently have to address male socialisation. Of course some sexual abuse is committed by women, but they are responsible for only a small proportion of offences – by some estimates, <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/child-sexual-abuse.aspx">as low at 6%</a>. Sexual offences against both children and women are crimes committed overwhelmingly by men, both men and boys. </p>
<p>If our society is serious about changing that, we have to change the way boys are socialised. As things stand, too many grow up to believe it is acceptable to sexually assault children and women. </p>
<h2>Not a watershed</h2>
<p>The exposure of Savile and the convictions of Harris, Clifford and Hall might well offer some form of “closure” to their victims. The rest of us have come to a strange sort of crossroads. We will never again be so naïve about the existence of sexual abuse nor the prevalence of sex offenders, however well we might think we “know” them. Indeed, many commentators appear anxious to formally designate Savile/Yewtree as a “watershed” in our response to sexual abuse.</p>
<p>This is a dangerous delusion. While the Savile affair and everything it has unleashed may do something to advance our understanding of sexual offending, we have also been shown the abject state of our ability to deal with it.</p>
<p>And even as these abusers who for so long thought themselves beyond the law have finally been brought to justice, there is little to think the situation is changing.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Next, read this: <a href="https://theconversation.com/notes-on-a-scandal-the-jimmy-savile-case-is-all-too-familiar-20379">Notes on a scandal: the Jimmy Savile case is all too familiar</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Gallagher receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, The Nuffield Foundation, the Department of Health and the NSPCC. </span></em></p>After a lengthy trial, a jury has found entertainer and TV presenter Rolf Harris guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault. On July 4 2014, he was sentenced to a custodial sentence of five years and nine…Bernard Gallagher, Reader in Social Work and Applied Social Sciences, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.