Jimmy Savile driver charged with sex offences

A FORMER BBC driver is to be charged with five sex offences as part of the investigation triggered by allegations against Jimmy Savile, the Crown Prosecution Service said yesterday.

David Smith, 66, has been charged with two counts of indecent assault on a boy under 14 between 1 June and 21 July, 1984; two counts of gross indecency with a boy under 14 between the same dates and buggery of a boy under 16 between 1 and 21 July, 1984, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

Smith is the first person to be charged under Operation Yewtree, the national investigation prompted after claims were made against disgraced TV presenter Savile. The CPS said Smith was a driver for a number of organisations, but that he was not Savile’s driver.

BBC news has reported that Smith worked as a driver for the broadcaster and possibly other employers. But a BBC press office spokeswoman said they were unable to confirm whether he had been employed by the organisation, as their records did not go back as far as 1984.

Smith, of Lewisham, south-east London, who drove BBC personalities during the 1980s, was arrested on 10 December last year. He was released on bail pending further inquiries and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 8 May.

Alison Saunders, chief Crown prosecutor, said: “The CPS has carefully considered the evidence gathered as part of Operation Yewtree in relation to David Smith, who was employed as a driver at the time of the allegations.

“We have concluded, in accordance with the code for Crown prosecutors, that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction, and that it is in the public interest for David Smith to be charged with five offences.”

A total of 11 men, including comedians Freddie Starr and Jim Davidson, have been arrested and bailed since Operation Yewtree was launched in September last year.

Others held include the singer, DJ Dave Lee Travis and Gary Glitter, and publicist, Max Clifford. Davidson, Clifford, Starr and Travis have denied allegations of sexual offences.

Last week, an 82-year-old man from Berkshire was arrested under Operation Yewtree, after being interviewed under caution by police detectives on 29 November. He has been bailed to a date in May pending further police inquiries.

All the arrests fall under the strand of Operation Yewtree termed “others”, meaning the offences are not alleged to involve Savile, who died aged 84 in October 2011.

BBC Director General promises ‘new broom’ mentality

THE BBC’s new Director General yesterday vowed to review senior staff pay-offs and salaries at the corporation.

Lord Hall said the size of pay-offs “has not been right” and told how the BBC had to justify how it spent the licence fee.

The BBC was accused of “rewarding failure” over the £450,000 paid to his predecessor, George Entwistle. Mr Entwistle stood down after after less than three months in the job, at the height of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

Lord Hall told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he believed there was a need for the corporation to look at how it spent all its money, including pay-offs for senior executives.

He said: “I think the size of the pay-offs has not been right.There is a serious issue here. I’m looking at pay-offs and I will have something to say about pay-offs in the next couple of weeks.” He said capping the senior salaries budget would be part of his plan to “simplify” the BBC.

Lord Hall said: “The senior salaries bill has come down already by a third and it will not grow under me. I will be looking for ways of simplifying the organisation, responding to things I hear from insiders and outsiders about the way this place can work more effectively.”

He added: “We’ve got to look at the way we spend all our money – on managers, on programmes, on everything – as if we were spending our own personal money.

“At a time when every single family in this country is feeling hard up, is feeling the pinch, we’ve got to be able to justify what we spend to the people who are paying for us.”

The Director General also said the lessons of the Savile scandal were being learned and he expected the recommendations of three reviews to be carried out. He defended the decision to move some figures criticised by the recent Pollard review, which looked at Newsnight’s decision to drop an investigation into abuse by Savile, to new jobs within the BBC.