Ex-hospital patient: ‘I saw Jimmy Savile molest brain-damaged girl’

By ANGUS HOWARTH
Published on 12/10/2012 00:28

FRESH claims of sexual abuse have been made against Sir Jimmy Savile, including allegations that he preyed on children during hospital visits.

A string of police forces said members of the public had come forward to make complaints. They have been referred to Scotland Yard, which is leading the investigation.

Tayside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and North Yorkshire are the latest forces to say allegations have been made.

Claims have also emerged that Savile groped young patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire, where he worked as a volunteer fundraiser, while one woman alleged she saw him molest a brain-damaged patient at Leeds General Infirmary.

Nurses at Stoke Mandeville are understood to have dreaded Savile’s visits and would tell children to stay in bed and pretend to be asleep when he came round.

Caroline Moore claims she was assaulted by Savile at the age of 13 while being treated for spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville in 1971.

Mrs Moore, from Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, said: “I was outside a ward or a gym and he came out and just rammed his tongue down my throat.

“I told my family at the time; they didn’t take it seriously because he was such a high-profile character.”

June Thornton, a patient at Leeds General Infirmary in 1972, said she saw Savile abuse someone she thought was a brain-damaged girl.

Ms Thornton was recovering from a back operation and said when she told a nurse about the abuse, she was ignored.

“I thought he was a visitor coming to see her,” she said. “He started rubbing his hands down her arms and then – I don’t know of a nice way to put it – he molested her. He helped himself. She just sat there and couldn’t do anything about it.”

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