The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) welcomes the Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) review. It is vital that we learn all the lessons from this landmark case and ensure our systems and processes are aligned to prevent someone like Savile ever committing such criminality again.
This report compliments and reinforces what we have already discovered as part of Operation Yewtree, namely that a significant number of victims of sexual abuse did not have the confidence to speak out.
All of this needs to be seen in the context of how much we have achieved through our approach to the public response to Operation Yewtree. We have seen a step change in the reporting of abuse, with a significant rise in the numbers of people coming forward. The police service and CPS will be working together to ensure our approach to victims continues to improve.
Although we are satisfied our officers followed the correct procedures in place at the time, HMIC have rightly highlighted the complexities of managing police information nationally.
There is a balance to be struck around ensuring sensitive information can be retrieved by investigating officers without compromising an individual's privacy and we continue to develop processes to ensure this can happen.
The HMIC identified three distinct reports held by the MPS. The 1964 ledger was only recently identified as holding information about Savile by a retired officer. No additional supporting documents have been traced, but it clearly states an investigation took place and two men were charged and one convicted.
The ledger only makes a passing reference to Savile frequenting the premises.
The 1998 letter was uncorroborated and anonymous information that related to issues in Leeds and was properly recorded and disseminated by the MPS to West Yorkshire Police for their further consideration. It was only uploaded onto the Police National Database (PND) in 2011 as the Impact Nominal Index (INI) was not a secure enough system for sensitive or restricted information such as this.
The 2003 investigation was properly recorded, investigated and stored with a restricted classification, as with all sensitive material. It was also not uploaded on the INI due to the lack of a confidential status or necessary layers of security.