Jimmy Savile might have abused 200+ kids

How Savile even abused his own sister's grandchild: His great niece reveals the scandal's most sickening twist yet - and how he bribed his sister to cover it up

PUBLISHED:23:45 GMT, 19 October 2012| UPDATED:23:59 GMT, 19 October 2012

The nightmares have stopped now, but Caroline Robinson’s girlhood was plagued by them. She remembers the disparate images that came to her as she slept: herself as a child in her best chequered, pinafore dress sitting on her great uncle’s lap; the sour reek of stale cigar smoke on his breath; her grandmother’s quiet collusion and her own impotent, silent terror.

‘When I was younger I had flashbacks,’ she says. ‘They invaded my dreams. I re-lived everything that happened to me in slow motion. I’d wake up sweating. I saw the whole scene as if I was a detached observer looking down on it, and the worst thing is I couldn’t make it stop. I’d shout but the words wouldn’t come out — and even now the smell of cigar smoke makes my flesh crawl.’

Almost 40 years on, Caroline, now 49, is happily married to her second husband David, a retired engineer. Yet she can still summon up, with forensic clarity, details of the times her great uncle Jimmy Savile sexually assaulted her.

Her admission that even she, a family member, was a victim of his depravity is a chilling one. Caroline was molested twice by him: once when she was just 12 and again three years later.

But equally unsettling is her revelation that Savile bought the silence of close members of his family circle by bribing them with lavish gifts and money. Her grandmother Marjorie Marsden, Savile’s elder sister, knew he had abused Caroline, and, she believes, Marjorie was also well aware he was a prolific and predatory paedophile. But she refused to confront her famous brother because she knew that if Savile were brought to book, the comfortable lifestyle he provided for her would end.

‘Uncle Jimmy gave Marjorie everything she wanted,’ says Caroline. ‘She was interested in Egyptology, so he bought her a house on the Nile. When she divorced, he paid for the best lawyer. He paid for her to live in a smart BUPA care home near his flat in Roundhay Park in Leeds just before she died in 2006.

She had private medical insurance and a cottage in Llandudno, courtesy of Jimmy; he bought her a caravan on the coast there. If Marjorie had blabbed, Jimmy would have had nothing. No fame, no money. In fact, he’d have been in jail. And Marjorie would have had nothing, too.

‘What Jimmy did to me was terrible. But the most unsettling thing of all is that Grandmamma, whom I loved dearly, knew exactly what was going on and she kept her mouth shut because Jimmy paid for her silence. She always referred to him as her “next of kin”. The camp that has closed ranks and kept silent about all this are those who have benefited financially from him.’