Cameras captured Jimmy Savile molesting me during Top of the Pops, claims woman

By GARETH ROSE
Published on 02/11/2012 00:13

A WOMAN has alleged she was molested by Jimmy Savile on camera as she was in the audience during filming of Top of the Pops.

In footage of the alleged incident, Sylvia Edwards, who was 18 at the time, is seen to jump in shock.

She is standing close to the presenter, and claims he attempted to put his hand up her skirt and she was forced to try and fend him off.

Ms Edwards said she complained to a studio worker at the time, who told her: “That’s just Jimmy Savile.”

The edition of the long-running pop show was aired in 1974.

Savile, who is surrounded by young women, is shown saying to a camera: “A fella could get used to all this.”

Ms Edwards recalled the ordeal, saying she was embarrassed and flustered.

“All of a sudden I felt this hand go underneath and I jumped up.

“I went to go back down again, but I couldn’t go anywhere, his hand was still there,” she said.

“I was trying to push it away, but he wouldn’t move it – I just screeched – I started feeling embarrassed because where could you go?

“I was just getting really flustered and he didn’t move, and I just remember trying to get out, but there were too many girls around me.”

She said that, as soon as it was over, she attempted to report what had happened to the nearest member of staff at the show.

Ms Edwards said: “I just found this man that had some sort of headset on, I don’t know what he was doing, next to a camera, and I said: ‘He’s really filthy, he’s putting his hand up my skirt and that’.

“He said: ‘Oh no, don’t be so stupid’.

“He said, ‘That’s just Jimmy Savile, go on get out of the way, out of the way, you’re blocking a camera shot’ or something.

“I had to move because this camera was coming around and I thought fine, OK, what do you say – once they’ve told you to get lost, I didn’t think that maybe I could go to the police, I just felt embarrassed.”

Ms Edwards said the incidents raised further questions about how much BBC staff knew of Savile’s actions.

“I know that they knew about it because I told them years and years ago and they just brushed it under the carpet,” she said.

“That is what annoyed me and prompted me to come forward to say they did know.”

Savile was a regular host on Top of the Pops after presenting the first episode of the long-running chart show in 1964.