‘She had brain damage … Jimmy Savile molested her, helped himself’

By ANGUS HOWARTH
Published on 13/10/2012 00:00

June Thornton, who was a patient at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) in 1972, said she saw Savile abuse a girl she believed was brain-damaged.

However, when she told a nurse about the incident, she was ignored.

Ms Thornton told ITV News: “In 1972, I was taken into the
LGI for an operation on my spine. After the operation, I was laid flat on my back and I saw, at
the bottom of the ward, to the side of the ward, Jimmy Savile come to a young lady sat in a chair.

“Unfortunately, this lady had, I think, brain damage, because she just sat there and he kissed her and I thought he was a visitor coming to see her,” said Ms Thornton.

“He started rubbing his hands down her arms and then, I don’t know of a nice way to put it, but he molested her, he helped himself.”

Ms Thornton added: “She just sat there and couldn’t do anything about it.

“When eventually a nurse came to see me, because I was on obs (obstetrics) at that time, I said to her, ‘That’s Jimmy Savile over there’, she said, ‘Yes’.

“I said: ‘If he comes anywhere near me I’m going to scream the place down’.”

Ms Thornton then made a shrugging motion to indicate the nurse’s response.

She went on: “I’ve told them 40 years ago, and I swear I am not telling a lie.

“I feel so inadequate because there was nothing I could do at the time.

“Had it been now, I think I’d have got up and killedhim, but there’s nothing I can do.”

Caroline Moore was also a patient when she says she was assaulted by Savile at the age of 13.

She was being treated for spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville in 1971 and was in a wheelchair at the time.

Mrs Moore, from Clarkston in East Renfrewshire, told BBC Radio Scotland: “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.

“There definitely, without any doubt, must have been more incidents, because I was only one 13-year-old girl,” said Mrs Moore, now 53.

ANGUS HOWARTH