How Can We Prevent Jimmy Savile Happening to a New Generation?
(And how every industry and young workers are vulnerable to harassment.)
This week many people across the country and world – it became an international story once the full horror became clear after his death – will have watched Steve Coogan’s extraordinarily apt and creepy performance of radio DJ, TV behemoth and as it turns out, serial paedophile and abuser of children and teenagers, Jimmy Savile.
As the series, The Reckoning, shows, over a period of fifty years, Savile was able to worm his way into the highest echelons of British and international society and business; the Royal Family, the BBC, the government, the Papal, huge charities, various TV and radio with a fatal mix of queasy charisma, philanthropy, deceit, and a big dollop of very powerful people’s willingness to believe he was a stand-up guy – despite acres of evidence to the contrary.
The series is good, thanks in part to an outstandingly horrible turn from Coogan who manages to show both his power and pathetic obsequiousness when met with more powerful people, but there are two major flaws in the series. The first is kind of a fantastical wish-fulfilment that there were loads of people who got the measure of him and tried to hold him to account. I think there were a few but far more who enjoyed the benefits of the proximity to his influence and the nudge-nudge-wink-wink-abusing-in-plain-sight nature of his persona. But perhaps more troubling is the retrospective sheen on The Reckoning, that that was the awful then and this is now, and it could and never would happen again. Who knows, perhaps this makes the complicit and all those who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear feel better, but this is utter BS.
For a kick-off, in the last five years we’ve all lived through scandals involving (to name just a few) Russell Brand, Noel Clark, Phillip Schofield, Huw Edwards, Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, with many, many more ‘alleged’ stories whispered about high profile men that no one will actually come out and say until the story finally breaks and then everyone ‘courageously’ does at once.
None of these men are Jimmy Savile, but their MO is often eerily similar, using money, power and influence to prey on younger less powerful people, abuse them, and then silence them. This pattern does not belong in long-gone decades, but happens in the here and now, and watching The Reckoning, one can’t help but notice the parallels between the character and behaviours of, for example, Jimmy Savile and Russell Brand: the court jester buffoonery, the allusions to abusive behaviour being made in plain sight, the contrivance of a ladies’ man image to excuse any accusations of dodgy, non-consensual behaviour.
But all this leads to another self-deception. That this kind of abuse happens in sexually decadent, ‘luvvy’, media circles suggesting if young people will hang out at Soho House or The Groucho, what do they expect etc. And once again – BS.
Despite living in supposedly ‘woke’ super right-on times, sexual abuse, harassment, and predatory behaviour is everywhere – the streets, schools, the workplace – and almost anyone existing in a power dynamic, where they have less power (so almost everyone) is susceptible, though particularly vulnerable are the young and inexperienced.
Hallie (22) got a highly coveted work placement at probably the biggest media-tech company in the world and was constantly propositioned and made to work late by her immediate line manager in his mid-forties. “My manager constantly arranged so we had to work late together and later do trips abroad together. He was always going on about how lonely he was and how his wife didn’t understand him, so really cringe, cliché stuff. And it wasn’t just me. He’d dangle fame and fortune to loads of young female influencers who were dying for a break. One night on a trip to Copenhagen, he knocked on my door, off his face and asked to come in for some ‘fun.’ I said no and asked for a transfer the following Monday. I never said why, but the ease at which it happened suggested it wasn’t the first time. He’s still there milking his position and earning a stack of money.”
Though it has always been assumed that it’s girls and young women suffer the lion’s share of harassment and it’s empirically true that vast majority of predators are male, high-profile cases such as Kevin Spacey, Philip Schofield and Bryan Singer have highlighted young men can be equally susceptible targets.
Lucien (23) got his first job in the City at a firm that prided itself on it’s slightly Wolf of Wall Street reputation on the quiet – even in the 2020’s. He was aware of the culture from fellow Cambridge graduates who had gone before him but assumed – mistakenly – because he was heterosexual male, he’d be impervious to the sexualised harassment suffered by the mostly new female recruiters. He was wrong. He explains, “One of the big bosses – who was married to a woman and had four kids, one of them just a couple of years younger than me – made it very clear at the interview and all through the very gruelling induction where 70% dropped out or got fired, that he expected a work hard play hard ethic and ‘whining’ wouldn’t be tolerated. You were expected to stay to the bitter end of the 4am benders and be at work and sharp the next day. When David* came onto me in the gents of this club, he made it very, very clear my position was dependent on accepting his advances, which started the most nightmarish year of my life.”
And it’s not just flashy industries one might associate with notorious behaviour. Rita (24) was a graduate of an elite teaching programme and was placed in a school she initially loved.
“Your first teaching placement is always notoriously hard because you have absolutely no idea what you are doing and everyone is so busy, no one has much time to help you out. After a particularly awful day in my first term, Saul dropped by my classroom and was so nice, he became sort of my unofficial mentor, and really good friend. He was a brilliant teacher, I still stand by that, and it devastates me what happened.” Saul assaulted Rita on a skiing trip the following term. Such was the circumstances Rita doesn’t want to elaborate on, she didn’t press charges, but quit teaching for good. Rita still struggles with acute anxiety.
These were just a mere snapshot of the stories I was told when I started digging about predatory behaviour targeted at young people in the workplace – there were, I’m not exaggerating, thousands more.
The trouble with sexual harassment in particular is both the intimate nature of it – there are rarely other witnesses to it, the shame surrounding it – the victim often blames themselves, and the patchy nature of ways harassment and abuse can be reported – some companies have fantastic departments, others I’ve heard of, the people dealing with sensitive and personal claims are friends with the person or people being complained about – this was actually the case in Lucien’s ordeal. The head of HR was literal golfing buddies with his predatory boss.
So, how do we stop this? How can we ensure across industries that young people who enter workplaces at the bottom of the totem pole are protected from predatory behaviour that absolutely does happen in every industry.
1.) Let’s get rid of the totem pole. This isn’t to say that there can’t be seniority and managers – but granting anyone godlike powers at work where they are unanswerable to anyone is antiquated and unethical. Workplaces should strive to be democracies, where there are people in charge, but the people who are not feel safe, have a voice and aren’t subject to abuse.
2.) Any company now where the board and seniority all look the same don’t really have a place in 2023. Equality and inclusivity shouldn’t happen just at the junior level, but also the senior level and every company should have women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and a range of ages – seniority doesn’t have to mean old. This not only makes a company representative of the modern age but is very reassuring to new recruits that they will find an empathic figure should the worst happen.
3.) The culture of silence across industries needs to stop now – even if it involves someone powerful or lucrative. In the publishing industry as we speak, there is a notorious best-selling writer who harasses the company’s junior staff every time he visits. If everyone both in and out the industry knows about him, given everything that’s happened recently, why the hell is he still being protected?
4.) Strength in numbers is important. WhatsApp groups have proven invaluable support and succour to young recruits across industries, enabling them to discuss, report on and eventually report abusive behaviour.
5.) Every HR department should have someone experienced in dealing with complaints about abuse and a very clear-cut company policy about how to make complaints and how they will be dealt with.
6.) In any company training, there should be clear instructions about what and what isn’t acceptable behaviour. I’ve heard of many incidences of when the perpetrator claimed they were having a bit of fun and the victim thought it was abusive behaviour – clarity protects everyone.
7.) Asking not to be harassed and complaining if you are does not make you a killjoy or a workplace whiner – expecting to be safe at work is a basic minimum.
8.) A boss or manager who insists young recruits get wasted and attend social functions they are not comfortable with, has already crossed a line.
9.) Don’t be a bystander – if someone else is being abused at work or has confided in you, ask them what they want to do next and support them in this action.
10.)Power and making a company money are not licences to prey, harass or abuse and it’s time we started calling this out before it reaches tragedy. The testimonies of the victims of the all the above should remind us, there is nothing fun or justifiable in any of the above.