Thursday, November 1, 2012

Suspicious Minds

What do the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, and Penn State University have in common with the Horace Mann School in New York City and Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles?  They all had trusted members of their organizations who were involved in child sex abuse scandals.

Now, "The BBC's reputation is on the line," says Chris Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust.  Police are describing disc jockey and BBC television host Jimmy Savile (who died last year at age 84) as "one of the worst sex offenders in recent history." Given recent history, that's a pretty big claim.

This latest BBC scandal began when a television documentary aired in October in which several women claimed that they were sexually abused by Savile when they were in their early teens. Hundreds of potential victims have since come forward with similar claims.

In connection with the Savile investigation, police arrested musician and convicted sex offender Gary Glitter (known for his shiny jumpsuits and whose real name is Paul Gadd).  Glitter served a U.K. prison term in 1999 for possession of child pornography. After moving to Vietnam, he was convicted of child abuse in 2006 and deported back to Britain in 2008. Glitter is best known for the crowd-pleasing hit "Rock & Roll (Part 2)" which, in 2006, the National Football League advised teams not to use at games.

Questions are now being raised about whether the BBC was involved in a cover-up, and whether Savile was at the center of a broader pedophile ring. All of this leaves some of us wondering, who can you trust?

"As a society, we've just got to somehow get over this notion that some men, some women, some institutions, are 100 percent pristine and trustworthy," said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We've got to look at actual behavior, not reputation."

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