Child welfare experts say there is a sadly familiar pattern— seen also in the case of child-molesting Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky or pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic church — of large organizations failing to act on claims of abuse from young people.
One of the revelations of Monday's documentary was that Rippon had sent an email expressing doubts about the Savile documentary because "our sources so far are just the women" — Savile's accusers.
Entwistle insisted the BBC was not complacent about sexism, and had hired a senior lawyer to look at how it handles sexual harassment cases.
"I do believe the culture has changed since the '70s and '80s," Entwistle said. "But I'm not convinced it has changed as much as it should have."
He said Savile had been "a very skillful and successful sexual predator who covered his tracks."
"These things are institutionally, it seems, very difficult to deal with," he said.
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Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless
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