Was Jimmy Savile caught?

BBC is set to air a new factual drama about Jimmy Savile and the horrific crimes he committed.

Ahead of the programme titled The Reckoning, here we take a look at the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile and if he was ever caught.

What crimes did Jimmy Savile commit? 

After Savile's death, in October 2011 aged 84, sickening tales of abuse spanning decades began to emerge.

More than 1,000 people came forward claiming they were abused by the fiend - making him one of Britain’s worst ever sex offenders.

It emerged in late 2012 that Savile sexually abused more than 400 people, most of them children but some as old as 75 and mostly female.

He used his position at the BBC and his charity work to gain access to victims, including at Stoke Mandeville, Leeds General Infirmary, and secure units Rampton and Broadmoor.

His roles as a DJ and TV presenter on Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It also afforded the predator the opportunity to cherrypick his victims.

One of his earliest reports of sexual abuse was in 1955 in Manchester - where Savile then managed a dance hall.

Was Jimmy Savile ever caught?

Savile never faced justice for his crimes, which were committed over the space of more than 50 years. 

When Savile’s crimes were first exposed in 2012, a year after his death, Operation Yewtree was launched after a fresh flood of allegations were made.

The following year, a joint Scotland Yard and NSPCC report branded him one of the UK’s most prolific known sexual predators.

Det Sgt Gary Pankhurst from Operation Yewtree, which was set up to investigate Savile, said: “There were pockets of offences in many different parts of the country, and they weren’t connected.

“It would be Leeds General Infirmary, or at the BBC, or up in Scotland, or he’d be over at Scarborough.

“Each of these elements of his life were separate circles that didn’t intersect, rather like terrorist cells in which you don’t provide all your information to more than one. That was the way he ran his life.”

He added: ‘’In the early weeks of Operation Yewtree it was really quite overwhelming.

“We’d all worked on murder inquiries, but this was of a different magnitude, and it just continued day after day after day.

“It was incredibly shocking. There were hundreds of individuals out there who may well need support, and their accounts needed to be listened to, heard, and responded to appropriately.

“During my career I’ve dealt with hundreds of sex offenders. And I’ve not come across anybody who has offended as prolifically or as frequently as Savile.

“He had no barriers on age or gender. He was responsible for an incredible amount of harm over many years’’

After an official review was held into Savile’s crimes, recriminations naturally started to fly over the organisations — particularly the BBC — who’d given him access to young people for decades.

Seven police probes were launched into Savile’s activities prior to his death, but officers said police forces across Britain weren’t able to connect the dots, partly due to the fact that a national crime database didn’t come online until 2010.

Savile was interviewed under caution by Surrey police, who were investigating an alleged indecent assault at Duncroft school, two years before he died.However, the Crown Prosecution Service found there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him.