Jimmy Savile and the IRA: Predator boasted terrorist friends could have enemies hospitalised

Paedophile used threats of ­violence to silence victims and anyone else who ­threatened to expose him 

JIMMY Savile terrified enemies by snarling that he was mates with ­­IRA killers who would ­cripple anyone who crossed him. 

The cunning paedophile used threats of ­violence to silence victims and anyone else who ­threatened to expose him, ­investigators on his case believe. 
 
Today the Sunday People can reveal how Savile once bragged to our journalist how he could fix anyone with just one phone call – to terrorists.

He said: “All I have to do is call my friends in the IRA. They’ll have someone waking up in hospital the next morning eating their breakfast through a f***ing straw.

“I know the IRA, men from the IRA, and you don’t need to ask these guys twice. I’m serious. Don’t f***ing think I’m not serious. I can get them done – just with a phone call. That’s all it takes, young man.

Our evidence has been passed to the multi-agency investigation into Savile, now believed to have collected the accounts of 200 victims.

A team of 10 from the Met’s Operation Yewtree are leading the probe, with help from regional police forces, the NSPCC and former ­detective Mark Williams-Thomas, a child protection expert.

On the case: Child protection expert and former detective Williams-Thomas

Late last week Peter Watt, head of the NSPCC’s helpline, said: “It’s now looking possible that Jimmy Savile was one the most prolific sex ­offenders our organisation has ever come across.”

The Met’s Cmdr Peter Spindler said: “We are dealing with alleged abuse on an unprecedented scale.”

Officers are ready to arrest Savile’s suspected accomplices ­including child abuser Gary Glitter. Convicted paedophile Jonathan King also is likely to be quizzed.

Sources close to the investigation believe the complaints that have emerged so far are the tip of the iceberg. And others are STILL in fear of their lives despite Savile’s death a year ago aged 84.

Our source said: “He boasted of knowing gangsters and men who you wouldn’t want to double cross. It is likely that some had been threatened with the IRA.

“They are still worried about ­coming forward.From all of the evidence ­gathered there is a clear picture ­developing of someone who not only abused vulnerable children but intimidated them and left them fearing for their lives.”

Terror was just one weapon used by Savile to stifle threats as he ­systematically abused children from 1959 to as late as 2006.

The others were charity work and becoming a TV institution. Each enhanced Savile’s reputation so anyone accusing him knew they faced being vilified.

Both activities also gave him easy access to young flesh.

Savile, a Roman Catholic who was once blessed by The Pope, was a regular visitor to Ireland using his charity work as a cloak. He made IRA threats during a meeting 12 years ago when our ­journalist was a local ­reporter on the Bucks Herald.

Savile was a volunteer helper at nearby Stoke Mandeville Hospital and was upset about the death of a local figure who he had known for several years.

There was a rumour the man had died after being mugged in the street.

The TV bigshot demanded the names of the thugs responsible.

We have omitted the name of the ­deceased out of respect for his family

.Jimmy's buddy: Member of the Provisional IRA with an M16

Arrogant Savile summoned our ­journalist to his ­office and raged: “I want you to tell me what happened with **** *****. If you hear that someone has done this then I want you to tell me who straight away.

“I want to know names and I can have them waking up in hospital with every bone in their body broken.

“If someone has done this to **** ***** that makes them my enemy. And you don’t want to be my enemy.”

When asked to explain he then made his boasts of his IRA ­connections. Savile ­added: “You don’t get blessed by the Pope for nothing.”

We told Mr Williams-Thomas of Savile’s threats and the investigator said: “The pattern of behaviour which has emerged is that Savile’s victims felt in great fear of him and this has ­prevented many from speaking out then or ever since.

Having researched Savile and knowing what I know, their fears were and are very ­genuine.” He said it was possible some victims are yet to come forward because they still have reasons to be afraid.

Savile also boasted of his use of ­violence and links to gangsters when filmed for a BBC Louis Theroux documentary.

Talking of his time as a dance-hall boss in Leeds in the 50s, he said: “I was always in trouble with the law for being heavy handed but I couldn’t care less.

“I never threw anyone out. I tied them up and put them down in the bloody boiler house until I was ready for them at about two o’clock in the f***ing ­morning. They’d plead to get out.

“Bo***cks to them. We’d tie them up and then come back. I was the judge, jury and executioner.

“If a copper came and said, ‘You was a bit heavy with that kid or those two guys,’ I’d say, ‘Your daughter comes in here. She’s 16.

She’s not supposed to come into town but she does and she comes here. I presume you’d like me to look after her. If you don’t, then tell me and I’ll let them dirty slags do what they want to her.’”

He said the police would reply: “All right, Jim. All right.”

Reign of terror: Savile with Louis Theroux in documentary

And he would tell the officers: “All right, then, don’t give me a f***ing hard time then. I never got nicked.

“And I’ve never altered.”

He hinted about underworld links in 1983 newspaper interview: “I never get physical personally. Let’s just say that while I’m in Edinburgh very dodgy things happen in London.

“I am just waiting for a call from Hollywood offering me the lead in the remake of The Godfather.”

He is known to have visited Ireland annually between 1968 and 1981 to lead fundraising walks for the Central Remedial Clinic in Dublin CRC.

The investigating team are also studying evidence concerning a number of high-profile figures in the BBC, in business and at the top of organisations friendly to Savile.

It is feared they may have been involved in an institutional cover-up of sexual abuse.

Another man reportedly facing arrest is one of Savile’s BBC staff who is accused of working as his ­accomplice in abuse and raping a former beauty queen.

The woman was 23 when she had consensual sex with Savile in the back of his caravan in 1970 after writing to him asking for work experience. A week later she was invited back to the BBC by this colleague.

He then violently attacked her in a locked storeroom.

She alleges Savile conspired with the man who assaulted her.

A source close to the investigation told the Sunday People: “What we’ve heard so far about Savile is the tip of the ­iceberg. It is clear there are people high up in organisations that either knew, suspected or turned a blind eye to the fact one of Britain’s biggest TV and radio stars was a prolific paedophile.”

It also emerged yesterday how Savile’s reign of terror and fear extended to his own family.

His sister turned a blind eye to his abuse of her granddaughter, it was ­claimed.Caroline Robinson, 49, said Savile, her great-uncle, twice sexually assaulted her as a young girl – aged 12 and again when she was 15.

She said that even today the smell of cigar smoke “makes my flesh crawl”.

But she said close family members who knew, including her grandmother Marjorie Marsden would be bribed with lavish gifts in return for keeping quiet.

Caroline said: “Uncle Jimmy gave Marjorie everything she wanted. She was interested in Egyptology so he bought her a house on the Nile. He paid for the best lawyer for her divorce. He paid for her to live in a smart BUPA care home near his flat in Roundhay Park in Leeds before she died in 2006.

“She had private medical insurance and a cottage in Llandudno, courtesy of Jimmy.

“He bought her a caravan on the coast there. If Marjorie had blabbed, Jimmy would have had nothing. No fame, no money. In fact, he’d have been in jail. And Marjorie would have had nothing too.

“What Jimmy did to me was terrible. But the most unsettling thing of all is that Grandmama, whom I loved dearly, knew exactly what was going on and she kept her mouth shut because Jimmy paid for her ­silence.

She always referred to him as her ‘next of kin’. The camp that has closed ranks and kept silent about all this are those who have benefited financially from him.”

Mr Williams-Thomas is working on a follow-up to the ITV documentary Exposure: The Other Side Of Jimmy Savile.