Did Savile Visit Home Accused of Abuse?

By Steve Lowe
Bedfordshire on Sunday
June 9, 2013

http://www.bedfordshire-news.co.uk/News/Did-Savile-visit-home-accused-of-abuse-20130609150000.htm


ALLEGATIONS into abuse at a Catholic boys’ home took another twist this week when a former local resident says she saw a priest leaving the home with Jimmy Savile.

Jill Fagg lived in Shefford at the time the priests running St Francis Boys’ Home have been accused of sexual and physical abuse against some of the children.

Many of them are getting together to start a ‘class action’ against the Catholic Church for compensation of the abuse they say they suffered.

The police have also reopened an investigation into the allegations.

Bedfordshire on Sunday has been asking if former boys at the home would be willing to come forward to give evidence and offer support to the action. Now one former resident of Shefford, Jill Fagg, 75, has said she saw Father Johnson, who used to run the home, leave with Jimmy Savile.

Jill said: “I was standing with my friend near the home and said to her to look because that was Jimmy Savile with the priest.

“I am certain it was him.

“I used to hang around, as at the time I was seeing a boy there called John McNamara.

“It was quite difficult as relationships were not allowed and most of the time the boys were not allowed out.

“I am a former Catholic myself and used to attend the church next to the home. ”

Jill she saw Savile in the 1950s and when asked how she would be able to recognise him at that time, she said she did not know, but that it was him and she did see him.

A Facebook page on a website called The Bullingdon Club, not the real club’s site, also states: “There is evidence that Jimmy Savile had a relationship with Shefford, Bedfordshire, both in 1985 and 1945.

“There is one other indication and that is Savile was witnessed by a named person to have been seen in the company of a St Francis Boys’ Home priest in Shefford not related to the other two dates. I’m not convinced yet.”

While neither this statement or Mrs Fagg’s testimony proves that Savile ever visited the boys’ home, we are reporting this in the hope that others will come forward and offer evidence to truth or otherwise of these claims.

The Catholic Church has said it will not comment while police investigations continue.