New revelations indicate Jill Dando knew about
abuse
Posted
by: Neon Nettle |@NeonNettle
24th February 2015
The friend
and retired BBC worker said the late Crimewatch host was told DJs, celebrities
and other staff were involved in organised abuse.
But the
anonymous source says “no one wanted to know” when Miss Dando raised concerns
about the alleged ring and other sexual abuse claims at the BBC.
Dando is said to
have passed a file to senior management in the mid-1990s, but they never
carried out an investigation. The
37-year-old TV presenter was shot dead on April 26, 1999, on the doorstep of
her home in west London. The crime remains unsolved.
The source said: “I
don’t recall the names of all the stars now and don’t want to implicate anyone,
but Jill said they were surprisingly big names.
“I think she was
quite shocked when told about images of children and that information on how to
join this horrible paedophile ring was freely available. Jill said others had
complained to her about sexual matters and that some female workmates also
claimed they had been groped or assaulted.
Nothing had been done and there seemed to be a policy of turning a blind
eye.”
The former
colleague said female BBC staff confided in Jill, one of the best-known TV
faces of the day after fronting primetime shows including Holiday and the Six
O’Clock News as well as Crimewatch.
The source said: “I
think it was in the mid-1990s. She was seen as the face of the BBC and a magnet
for women with problems.”
Miss Dando compiled
a file of complaints but was a television presenter and “not really an investigative
journalist”, the source said. “She passed the information on to someone else
and they gave it back.
No one wanted to
know.
“I do remember that
she gave a file to senior management. I don’t think she heard any more.
Other women who
complained told Jill they didn’t want to risk their careers by making official
statements against individuals as they would lose their jobs and that bosses
seemed to ignore it.”
A BBC spokesman
said they would always investigate any allegations of this nature, but added: “We’ve
not seen anything that substantiates these claims.”
After Jimmy
Savile’s sexual crimes were exposed in 2012, Jill’s fellow BBC presenter Sally
Jones revealed that the disgraced DJ tried to kiss and grope her in a lift in
the late 1980s.