A TERRIFIED teenage girl was molested on camera by Jimmy Savile during Top Of The Pops — then told to “get lost” by a BBC boss when she complained.
A video clip has preserved the shocking moment when the laughing pervert put his hand up horrified Sylvia Edwards’ skirt — as 20 million viewers watched the live show.
Blonde Sylvia, 19, can be seen shrieking and struggling to escape while creepy Savile smirks: “I tell you something, a fella could get used to this, as it ’appens, he really could get used to it.”
Video: Jimmy Savile molests girl live on Top Of The Pops
SHOCKING footage of the laughing pervert putting his hand up the skirt of horrified Sylvia Edwards on the show.
Speaking for the first time about the ordeal, Sylvia told The Sun: “I felt his fingers go towards my bottom. It was disgusting.”
Afterwards she ran straight to a BBC floor manager and told him what Savile had done. To her horror, he said: “Get lost — it’s just Jimmy messing about.”
The assault at BBC TV Centre in West London on November 25, 1976, left Sylvia with mental scars — and is the first video evidence of Savile’s sex abuse.
 |
| Smile ... Sylvia, to left of Savile with flowers, on Top Of The Pops |
She had been excited to be among a group of girls hand-picked to sit next to the DJ as he introduced artists.
Elton John performed his ballad Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. Then Savile, 50 at the time, began introducing the chart-topping If You Leave Me Now, by Chicago.
As he did so, Sylvia felt Savile’s bejewelled fingers wandering.
 |
| Shock ... she reacts in horror as the perv abuses her on camera |
The 55-year-old mum of two recalled: “Jimmy Savile appeared in the middle of us and the camera panned around.
“Then I felt his hand go up my skirt. I leapt off my chair in shock. I was so surprised I cried out and didn’t know how to deal with it.
“But he just laughed and carried on mauling me while talking to the camera. I panicked and tried to move away from him but it was so crowded I couldn’t escape. When I tried to sit down his hand was still there and went for my bottom again.
“I felt so embarrassed and ashamed because it was live on TV and all my friends and family were watching.
“The worst thing was that he was so casual when he did it. He was committing a sexual assault live on the BBC and no one gave a damn.”
Sylvia went to seek help but was given short shrift.
She said: “There was a man standing next to a camera with headphones on who seemed to be running the show, so I went up to him and told him Jimmy Savile had just put his hand up my skirt.
“But he was very cross and told me to get lost. He said it was just Jimmy messing about and I was being stupid.
“Then he said he was busy and moved me out of the way because I was blocking a camera shot.
 |
| Sylvia ... aged 23 Now ... Sylvia |
“I was a naive girl then — I’d never slept with anyone — and was shocked. I didn’t know where to go or who to speak to after getting rejected like that.
“I tried to shut it out of my mind as best as I could. But looking back, I wish I’d had the courage to take my complaint further.
“The evidence on the video is clear, and if I could have got him convicted, I might have saved other young people from much worse.
“But I have to stop blaming myself because, at the end of the day, he did that to me on live TV and they let him. How could the BBC’s bosses ever say they didn’t know what was going on?”
Sylvia, then a trainee hairdresser, went with a workmate called Lynn to see the broadcast. But she never went again, fearing she could fall into Savile’s clutches once more.
The experience made her fear men and could never bring herself to sleep with a boy she was dating.
She also partly blames her upsetting memories for the break-up of her marriage nine years ago.
But now she plans to join more than 300 victims of the Jim’ll Fix It star who have so far complained to police.
It emerged yesterday that cops blew seven chances to nail Savile before he died last October aged 84. They dropped abuse investigations in London, Surrey and Jersey.
Sylvia, of Twickenham, South West London, added: “What he did to me was minor compared to some. But it affects me to this day.
“I have never felt comfortable about being touched. All these years I’ve never said anything because I thought no one would listen after what the BBC man said.
“You can hear Savile on the video saying, ‘A fella could get used to this’. The tragedy for his victims is, that’s just what he did.”
 |
| Show ... paedo Savile hosted |
Abused in chip shop
A WOMAN told yesterday how she was repeatedly molested by a sniggering Jimmy Savile in a fish and chip restaurant where she was a waitress.
Faye Sarr, 27, now a social worker in child protection, said the pervert began grooming her when she was 14 and he was in his 70s.
He called her his “private waitress” — and once tried to forcibly kiss her up against a wall.
The abuse lasted six months while she worked at Marlows Fish and Chip restaurant in Roundhay, near Savile’s home in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Weekly chat with nine cops
SAVILE held weekly breakfast meetings with top cops at his Leeds penthouse in the years some alleged victims called police, a source claims.
Up to nine officers attended his “Friday Morning Club” for 20 years until shortly before his death. There is no suggestion they knew of his abuse.
Savile pal Joseph Barker, 85, said: “We drank tea and made light conversation.”
Scared stars go to Clifford
STARS from the 1960s and 70s have contacted PR guru Max Clifford “frightened to death” they will be implicated in the Savile scandal.
Mr Clifford said the celebs, some of them still big names, once lived a “hedonistic lifestyle” where young girls threw themselves at them. He added: “They never asked for anybody’s birth certificate.”
 |
| Smile ... Sylvia, to left of Savile with flowers, on Top Of The Pops |
Fancy dress sales rocket
SICK partygoers have emptied costume hire shops of “Jimmy Savile” outfits for Halloween.
Retailers across the country have sold out of wigs, vests and shiny shellsuits.
At Harlequin in Maidstone, Kent, a salesman said: “We used to get one or two people a month coming in for the Savile costume, now we are getting ten a day.”
‘Kids beast covered up’
THE BBC and ITV were yesterday accused of covering up another serial paedophile who worked on kids programmes.
TV producer John Owen, 49, killed himself in 2001 as he faced a teen sex abuse trial.
A documentary about the perv’s attacks as a teacher in Wales was turned down. Film-maker Karl Francis claimed: “There was a cover-up.”
(courtesy the sun)
(courtesy the sun)
