How Jimmy Savile Did It: Thomas Duggan Got There First

By A.Dean
The AOAdvocates
October 26, 2012

http://www.aoadvocates.co.uk/child-abuse-general/how-jimmy-savile-did-it-thomas-duggan-got-there-first/

The number of victims of Jimmy Savile’s abuse continues to rise. As of yesterday, Scotland Yard had identified 300 of his victims—an increase of 100 over last week. The police have already spoken with 130 victims thus far, and are exploring 400 lines of inquiry.

These figures boggle the mind. That a man who never left the limelight for five straight decades could have gotten away with child abuse on this scale begs many questions; inquiries have now been launched to answer these, and examine the roles and failures of the BBC, NHS, and police in overlooking the evidence of his activities. While it is too little too late for survivors to face Savile down in court, civil redress remains a possibility for survivors of his abuse.

The Savile story begs the question of whether he was an anomaly, or whether what he did tells us more about serial child abusers generally. Savile was distinctive in many ways, both as an entertainer and perpetrator. He empowered himself by becoming a household name, a beloved figure, ultimately a “knight”. He abused young children around the country, using his fame, wealth, flamboyant demeanour and style of dress to double bluff his countrymen into thinking him a harmless, gold-hearted eccentric. Any suspicions about his keen interest in children, especially vulnerable children, and even the occasional rumours of his sexual improprieties were quashed by his celebrity. He was a living legend – which bought him a strange kind of insulation from scrutiny, and allowed him to leave a trail of hundreds of damaged, disturbed or broken lives that stretches back to the late 1950s.

But Savile was far from the only mass-scale abuser in operation during his lifetime. In fact most abusers have multiple victims; and there is ample evidence that serial pedophiles have long been at work. In our work as advocates for survivors of historic abuse, we’ve encountered many allegations, previously kept hidden, that go back just as far as Savile’s, and sometimes further. These fact patterns tell a familiar tale of adults using their authority over children to groom, manipulate, and abuse them. The impact on victims, who were then young children but who are now entering middle age, sometimes old age, is no less severe.

One of the most striking stories of child abuse dating back to this time involves St Bede’s College in Whalley Range, Manchester, an esteemed Catholic grammar school for boys at the time. St Bede’s College was closely tied with the Catholic Diocese of Salford. Between 1950 and 1966, the Rector of St Bede’s College was Father Thomas Duggan, who was elevated to the status of Monsignor in 1958. As reported in the Manchester Evening News last year, more than 50 former pupils of St Bede’s have recently come forward to the Diocese of Salford to highlight the sexual and psychological abuse they experienced while at the school, specifically at the hands of Monsignor Duggan, who molested, fondled, and raped these boys in his care. The Diocese of Salford has apologised for what happened, though in less than robust terms. Civil redress is being explored by many of Duggan’s victims, 15 of whom our firm is representing.

It remains possible, maybe even likely, that far more boys were harmed by Monsignor Duggan than just those who have already come forward. Thousands of boys were educated at St. Bede’s when Duggan ran it, and he had a definite system for grooming and abusing his charges, repeated with chilling efficiency. Like Savile, Duggan established himself at the top of the pyramid of power in his community; in life he was beyond reproach, a Monsignor of the Catholic Church, and a force to be reckoned with. It appears he was given almost free reign over St Bede’s College and his young students there—and certainly little scrutiny. Only in the years since his death has the scope of his abuses come to light, and only in the last year have some of his victims found it within themselves to speak out about what they endured as pupils at St Bede’s.

St Bede’s was also troubled more recently by allegations concerning another priest. Father William Green, a teacher-priest at the school in the 1970s and 1980s, was convicted in 2008 of numerous counts of assault and indecency with young boys. He was sentenced to six years in prison.

The shine is off the apple for Savile. The same can be said for men like Monsignor Thomas Duggan. Both lived in glory and esteem, only to have the truth of their lives laid bare after their deaths; the full reach of their crimes is still in the process of being uncovered.

As advocates for survivors of child abuse, we seek to aid that process of uncovering the truth. We are intent on finding and pursuing credible allegations of abuse, involving perpetrators such as Thomas Duggan and Jimmy Savile, and any others, wherever and whenever they occur. If you are a survivor of such abuse, we encourage you to contact us.