Tony Blackburn must die: the BBC kills the messenger
Tony Blackburn is pictured at his home in Hertfordshire on the Times’ front page. Mr Poptastic has been sacked by the BBC. Why? Is it because the BBC is controlled by untouchable, self-serving elitists who have, as Blackburn says, “hung him out to dry’?
Kaya Burgess puts is beautifully:
Tony Blackburn has accused the BBC of “hanging him out to dry” and says he is suing the corporation after being sacked over evidence that he gave to a sex abuse inquiry. Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s director-general, said yesterday that the DJ’s dismissal severed the final link between the BBC and the individuals mentioned in a 1,000-page report on sexual abuse published yesterday by Dame Janet Smith.
The old and the unfanciable are gone. The BBC is targetting those who aren’t considered hip.
With any luck Blackburn will die before he can sue the BBC for making him into a “scapegoat”. Well, it’s not hard to imagine that’s what the BBC’s untouchables want. They’re all guilty in isolation when they’re dead; the crimes of the past wrapped in the wooden box and given to the other worms.
The report said that in 1971 a celebrity named as “A7” was accused by the mother of Claire McAlpine, a 15-year-old girl, of “seducing” her daughter, who later took her own life. Blackburn has revealed that he was A7 and denied the allegation. He said that the report made “no suggestion” that he was guilty of any misconduct, but said that he had been dismissed by the BBC because his recollection of the 1971 investigation “does not tally with theirs”.
Dame Janet’s report asserts that Blackburn was interviewed at the time by Bill Cotton, then head of the BBC’s light entertainment group, and by Sir Brian Neill, a QC who was investigating separate matters at Top of the Pops.
Blackburn said in a statement before the report’s publication: “I have repeatedly told Dame Janet and the BBC I was never interviewed by either man in this context and the BBC records are either very vague or have, conveniently, disappeared.”
You can read more on Clair McAlpine here.
The Star (page 4 and 5): Shamed BBC Turned blind eye for 50 years to VIP paedo Savile”
That would be the BBC that employed ‘national treasure’ John Peel as a DJ, a man who boasted of getting blow jobs from 13-year-olds.
And that eye was not blind. It saw.
The Mirror (front page): “Secret Been Memos that got DJ Tony Blackburn the sack”
The BBC is run along the liens of mid-sized Communist state.
The Mirror has obtained secret documents which led to the BBC sacking DJ Tony Blackburn. The veteran DJ, 73, was grilled by BBC bosses over claims he “seduced” a teenager dancer who later killed herself, the papers reveal. But the sacked star last night continued to insist the interviews never took place, despite documents to the contrary.
In one of the 1971 papers obtained by the Mirror, the BBC’s Assistant Head of Variety Tony Preston, told Assistant Solicitor George Derrick he and Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton had spoken to Mr Blackburn over the allegations made by 15-year-old Claire McAlpine.
He wrote: “As we expected, he has issued a flat denial. For my part, I must accept the situation, although I would be less than fair if I were not to record that his [Blackburn’s] recollection does not agree with the first thoughts of his agent.”
Preston, Derrick and Cotton are all dead.
Another note states: “Enquiries were duly made and two senior officials of the BBC interviewed the disc jockey concerned. The disc jockey denied categorically the allegation made.” The papers also reveal Mr Blackburn was interviewed again by Brian Neill QC between 1971 and 1972 as part of an inquiry into a string of scandals at Top of the Pops, where Claire was a dancer. The lawyer noted the DJ “told me that the girl had come to see him on several occasions and had invented stories for the purpose of getting access to him”. He added: “He said she seemed to him in a sort of fantasy world but that she had not made any sexual advances.”
As for Tony Blackburn:
Mr Blackburn was fired by Director-General Lord Hall this week, after a 49-year career with the BBC, over “inconsistent” evidence he gave to the Dame Janet Smith review. He continues to insist he was not quizzed by the two Beeb bosses. The veteran broadcaster, who has lost BBC contracts worth £200,000 a year, said last night: “I repeat what I told Dame Janet when I voluntarily gave evidence to assist her and the BBC. What I said in my earlier statement regarding the alleged meetings with Brian Neill QC and Bill Cotton 45 years ago still stands. Given Dame Janet Smith’s concerns of a culture of fear in coming forward at the BBC, the fact that I have been scapegoated for giving my honest account and best recollections of those events 45 years ago, which I felt was a whitewash, what whistleblower at the BBC would ever come forward when they see the way they have hung me out to dry?
“Sadly, today’s news agenda should have been about the survivors of abuse carried out within the BBC but, by sacking me, they have managed to take the focus off those who have suffered so much. My lawyers are now considering all statements made by the BBC about me today and we will be taking action.” He later said through his solicitor that the review “might well prefer the documentary evidence to his recollection”.
The Sun (pages 10 and 11): “Savile dressed as Womble to rape boy of 10”
Ah, the wholesome Wombles. Read more about them leering at young girls here.
BBC paedo Jimmy Savile wore a Womble costume when he raped a boy aged ten and sexually assaulted a girl of 12 in front of each other. The DJ struck in his dressing room minutes after he had finished filming a Top of the Pops pre-Christmas show in 1973.
The shocked lad “sat still like a statue” before Savile warned the pair: “It’s our special secret.” The attacks were revealed in Dame Janet Smith’s £10million, three-year report released yesterday in which she slammed the BBC for allowing Savile and pervert broadcaster Stuart Hall to abuse 93 victims… His youngest female rape victim was 13, the youngest male aged eight.
And:
Many fans were terrified into silence. Savile told one: “Don’t even think about going to the papers.”
He was right. Largely, they didn’t give a toss.
You might have seen the BBC documentary on Radio One DJs. Man Alive: The Disc Jockeys (February 1970). The series was edited by Esther Rantzen’s future hubby Desmond Wilcox. (More on them here.)
It features this section on Emperor Rosko.
“Radio One belongs to the taxpayer and doesn’t splash princely salaries around for men like Emperor Rosko,” says reporter Jeanne La Chard. “He accepts the BBC’s shop policy of paying low wages as both sides know about the big big perks that can accompany the adulation of this new empire – British teeny boppers.”
The interviewer, Jeanne La Chard, goes on to grill these innocent little teenyboppers about her infatuation with Emperor Rosko:
“I listen to him and I like listening to his voice and I get carried away” says one young besotted teenager about the subject of her adoration DJ Emperor Rosko.
JLC: “What do you mean you get carried away?”
Teen: “I just hear his voice and I imagine him…”
JLC: “When you say you imagine him…you imagine him doing what?”
Teen: “Talking and smiling and…all the actions with it. It’s just good.”
JLC: “And where do you do your listen to this?”
Teen: “In the bedroom.”
Posted: 26th, February 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
