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THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY - PASSED BY THE STATES OF JERSEY


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

THE COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY

PASSED TODAY IN THE STATES OF JERSEY - 43-0


A QUICK POSTING


As we set off this morning to the States of Jersey in order to listen to the debate into the terms of reference for the upcoming Committee of Inquiry into decades long child abuse in the Jersey Care System we at Team Voice were feeling the familiar emotion of here we go again. That said we have experienced a surreal episode never experienced before in any states sitting that we have attended. I will try and put into words what we, and interested parties that we spoke to, felt during this historic debate.

Where to begin. We all gathered outside awaiting the time for the debate to begin. There was talk about the amendments, would they be adopted, would the states back a full committee of inquiry, would years of campaigning pay off? This has been a struggle for all concerned not least the abuse survivors themselves. The debate began and immediately you could sense an atmosphere that has not been felt before in the chamber as far as I'm aware this was to set the scene for the debate that followed. Yes, there were inevitable questions of money from some members concerning the cost of the inquiry but these speeches were lost in the atmosphere of the day. We don't know how all the individual states members felt about this as so few members spoke but I would say that for the first time since becoming Chief Minister, Ian Gorst gained a little respect from Team Voice in that it appeared that he wanted to do the right thing in the face of opposition within his own ranks. The Chief Minister looked to hold the respect of the entire house, which was evident when he came back after lunch and accepted Deputy Tadier's amendment which too was voted in unanimously 39-0.

After the expectance of Deputy Tadier's amendment the main debate was looking good for all those that have campaigned hard for a robust and fit for purpose committee of inquiry. This as expected came to fruition. I have to mention the passionate and emotional speech of Senator, Francis Le Gresley who we must remember had brought proposition P19/2010 to the states when they decided that we didn't require a committee of enquiry. His speech touched us all. It came from the heart. I believe that he felt like we all did and that this was the time to get it right and do it now. We are talking about real people who have suffered horrific abuse at the hands of pedophile's and care workers whilst in the care of the States of Jersey. He set the tone and from that moment on the battle was surely won.

When the vote was read out and the committee of inquiry was passed it was an incredible feeling. The hard work had paid off. We can't thank everyone who worked behind the scenes enough. You know who you are. This was about not giving up. This was about sticking to our guns. This was about team work. If you stick together and believe in what you are doing and have the truth and right on your side you can achieve what some people say is the impossible.

We will not get complacent. This is a box ticked. We move on. The job is not done yet.

We do feel that a weight has been lifted from our shoulders. Not a day has passed when we have not thought about the committee of inquiry and the victims and survivors of abuse.

Today was a victory for the abuse survivors, campaigners and the states of jersey as a whole.

Rico and VFC

Jimmy Savile and the Cardinal: Britain's top Catholic cleric was friend of disgraced TV host



Grinning and giving a thumbs-up, Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric poses with his friend, disgraced paedophile Jimmy Savile.

The snap, taken six years ago, emerged last night after Cardinal Keith O’Brien quit amid allegations of “inappropriate acts” towards fellow priests.

The photo was taken in Edinburgh in 2007 as fund-raiser Savile and the cardinal unveiled a £375,000 vehicle for the disabled.

The pair first met in the 70s, when O’Brien was a priest in Kilsyth, North Lanarkshire – and worked with a friend of Savile’s mum.

Another priest at Kilsyth at the time has been suspended following claims of abuse against two young victims.

It was Cardinal O’Brien who ordered the investigation last September.

When Savile’s vile secrets became known, the cardinal called for him to be stripped of his papal knighthood, awarded in 1990.

Cardinal O’Brien quit just 24 hours before he was due to fly to Rome to help choose the next pope.

Police could have stopped Jimmy Savile in the 1960s, says official report

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary says police failed to investigate complaints of sexual assault and dismissed victims

Numerous police failings left Jimmy Savile free to sexually abuse hundreds of young people over five decades – when he could have been stopped in the 1960s, according to a highly critical report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).

The watchdog's inquiry into police handling of Savile revealed that the disgraced DJ, who died in October 2011, could have been stopped as early as 1964 but police mishandled evidence and dismissed victims.

In a 61-page report to the home secretary, Theresa May, HMIC raised fresh concerns about information sharing in the police and warned that officers could fail to prevent a Savile-like scandal happening again.

The inspectorate described a "cultural mistrust" of evidence from children, warning that procedures adopted by various agencies over many years had left vulnerable young people unprotected by the criminal justice system.

"The findings in this report are of deep concern, and clearly there were mistakes in how the police handled the allegations made against Savile during his lifetime," said Drusilla Sharpling of HMIC.

"However, an equally profound problem is that victims felt unable to come forward and report crimes of sexual abuse."

Five allegations of sexual assault were recorded against Savile in his lifetime, according to HMIC – compared with the 600 made since October last year when the Metropolitan police launched its Operation Yewtree investigation.

Meanwhile, eight victims have so far come forward with concerns about how their allegations against Savile were handled – and the inspectorate revealed examples of how a series of complaints about him were dismissed by police officers.

In 1963, a Cheshire man was told by a police officer to "forget about it" and "move on" when he reported an allegation of rape by Savile, according to HMIC.

Another man who tried to report an assault his girlfriend had suffered at a recording of Top of the Pops was told by police he "could be arrested for making such allegations" and dismissed.

The inspectorate investigated seven incidents – including five sexual assault complaints by victims and two pieces of intelligence – and concluded that a failure to join the dots left police unable to derail Savile's five-decade reign of abuse.

In an alarming finding, HMIC warned that inconsistencies in intelligence sharing by police forces meant there was a "distinct possibility" the failure to identify Savile's pattern of abuse could be repeated.

HMIC said it was sufficiently concerned that it will review information management in the police later this year – just two years after the Police National Database (PND) was set up.

Referring to Michael Bichard's recommendations to reform intelligence sharing in 2004, the HMIC report said: "It is a matter of some concern that, in 2007, in the post-Bichard era, the failures of the past may still have been repeated."

Evidence uncovered by HMIC suggests Savile was known to Met officers investigating child sex offences as early as 1964 – the same year he presented the first edition of Top of the Pops.

The inquiry also turned up an anonymous letter received by the Metropolitan police in 1998, which it said was "never properly investigated", despite suggesting that Savile changed his telephone number as a result of a blackmail attempt.

HMIC's report also raises further questions for West Yorkshire police, which said in February that some officers regularly visited Savile's Leeds home while on duty.

Two former West Yorkshire police officers and a relative of an officer have come forward to state they were aware of concerns surrounding Savile's contact with young girls, the report said.

As the force for the area where Savile lived throughout his life, West Yorkshire should have received three key pieces of intelligence, according to HMIC, but has only been able to confirm receipt of a letter from the Met in 1998.

An inspector from the force who may have "acted on behalf" of Savile is currently under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

AhabsOtherLeg wrote:
In 1963, a Cheshire man was told by a police officer to "forget about it" and "move on" when he reported an allegation of rape by Savile, according to HMIC.

http://www.itv.com/news/2013-03-12/the-letter-to-police-that-could-have-stopped-savile-in-1998/

Police restricted access to intelligence that could have exposed Jimmy Savile's sex crimes because it involved celebrity, blackmail and paedophilia, today's HMIC report has revealed.

A letter received by Scotland Yard in 1998 claiming the DJ was a paedophile was classed as "sensitive", meaning other investigators could not find it, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary found.

"The 1998 MPS anonymous letter was marked as 'sensitive' because of Savile's celebrity status and because there were allegations of blackmail and paedophilia. This categorisation meant that the intelligence was not readily available to be searched by later investigating officers," the inspectors said.

Scotland Yard sent the letter to West Yorkshire Police, the area where Savile lived, but other investigators could not access the information until 2011.

The letter said:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The image that Jimmy Savile has tried to portray over the years is someone who is deeply concerned with his fellow man; however, the thrust of this is entirely the opposite. His fundraising activities are not out of altruistic motives, but purely for selfish advancement and an easy living.

"He has slimed his way in wherever possible. He has tried to hide his homosexuality which in any event is an open secret with those who know; but did you know that he is also a deeply committed paedophile and involved in b****ry with young children.

"What can not be acceptable and must be stopped is Jimmy Savile's paedophilia. I know he has pornography, but do not know which of his houses it is in.

"Regularly, he runs for the Life charity in Roundhay Park in Leeds, he would say 'Now I've had a run, I feel like some bum'. And would then later in the evening go where the rent boys hang out.

"Please, do not let him get away with this perversion and that he feels immune because of the people he mixes with. There are too many of his perverted type around.

"Don't let him continue to think he is untouchable, or that his secret is too well hidden.

"When Jimmy Savile fails, and sooner or later he will, a lot of well-known personalities and past politicians are going to fall with him.

"I have done my duty, my conscience is clear, you have the power, time, and resources at Scotland Yard to wheedle him out, and expose him for what he really is.

"If you think this is a hoax, or a crank letter, think again. It is not I who suffer if you do nothing, but the children."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 2007, Surrey Police investigated three complaints made against Savile, later tied in with an allegation made to officers in Sussex.

HMIC found that had Surrey known about the 1998 letter and a complaint against Savile received by Scotland Yard in 2003, the investigation would have been pursued more vigorously.

It said: "We are confident that if the Surrey investigating officers had been made aware of this material, the investigation would have been scaled up accordingly."

The HMIC report also found that Savile's celebrity status impeded investigations.

"It is absolutely clear to us as a result of this review that one of the reasons why allegations were not made at the time, or investigations were not conducted as they might have been, centres on Savile's status," it said.

"He was a well-known national celebrity, praised for his substantial fundraising efforts, and a household name to many. That fact alone allowed him access to institutions in a way that those without celebrity status would have been denied.

"We wonder, as a result, whether those responsible for investigating potential criminal offences had a different approach to dealing with allegations against those in the public eye.

"There might well have been the thought that, in order to charge a man such as Savile, there had to be that extra piece of evidence; that piece of evidence that had to be conclusive; that second or third witness to the crime - just to be sure that bringing proceedings against him was justified."

It said that officers in Sussex had Savile's status in mind when they carried out interviews, and that the victim was told it would be difficult for a prosecution to take place against "a big celebrity".

The Guardian

Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: the Jimmy Savile Scandal by Frank Furedi – review

A book about the Savile scandal shows no interest in the victims

Suzanne Moore
The Guardian, Wednesday 13 March 2013
comments (23)


Frank Furedi - Liberal baiting: sociology professor Frank Furedi. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Rex Features

It takes a special kind of man who, while the nation is still reeling in shock at the mounting revelations of the scale of abuse of children by a "light entertainer", quickly dashes out a book on our dumb propensity for moral panics. But then Frank Furedi is no ordinary academic. He is a predatory sociologist whose main aim is to reverse the self-absorbed narratives of the bourgeoisie. His day job is professor of sociology at the University of Kent, but by night … well? He was the leading ideologue of the Revolutionary Communist Party which morphed into the magazine Living Marxism and now operates as the Institute of Ideas. Then there is its online sideline spiked, the editor of which, Brendan O'Neill, is a sub-Danny Dyer obnoxious intellectual wind-up merchant.

I mention this because Furedi has an agenda – one which needs spelling out – for this is not really a book on Savile and certainly not about his victims. It's a counterblast against familiar moral panics. Furedi reworks his favourite themes: he dislikes the nanny state, paranoid parenting, therapy culture and "victimology". He always has some sensible points to make: the middle classes do over-protect their children. Disrupting our sentimentality about children is no bad thing. Words such as "trauma" get used so much they are stripped of meaning. But he arrives at a rightwing "libertarian" position – he is against intervention, when the reality is that under-resourced social services are being cut anyway.

So to rehearse all this during the Savile revelations is an odd mirroring of what is already happening, and Furedi, instead of challenging dominant thought, mostly reinforces it.

As more and more women came forward, the shock that people felt about the extent of the abuse and the kind of access Savile was given was real enough. It was not mere imaginings. Then a bout of odd self-flagellation by the BBC occurred. The reality of sexual abuse was eclipsed by a panic about the management of key institutions. Who had colluded? Who had known? Was "liking" young girls a part of the culture that we cannot retrospectively impose our standards on? In this febrile atmosphere, Furedi claims, a "moral crusade" was begun.

The context was the perceived "culture of sleaze" in our institutions. But to me it was clearly a huge exercise in displacement, in which the "victims", soon enough, were not the girls raped at 12 but highly paid TV executives, with their jobs at risk. It was easier to discuss this. Those who had bravely spoken up soon became forgotten again.

Furedi does exactly the same thing, and sidesteps the "victims" completely. He shows no interest in them, Savile or the culture in which this abuse was prevalent, beyond some Peter Hitchens-type mutterings about "the 60s". He takes us through other child abuse panics such as Cleveland and Orkney, and discusses "the narrative of abuse" Why? Do we doubt that Savile did these things? He sees a society that invests too much in children but distrusts its own institutions, arguing there is no point in trawling though history for victims, thereby pathologising all child-adult relationships. At times he denies that all violation causes long-term harm.

There are no actual voices of victims here because Furedi is against the affirmation of victimhood as an identity. Or perhaps because he couldn't bring himself to talk to actual people. This is another displacement then, for as he talks of moral crusades, it all becomes a meta-discourse in which the suffering of individuals is inconsequential. He is pretty close to a conspiracy theorist much of the time, while believing he is debunking such theorists. This is where "the radical left" merges with the "libertarian" right – selfish individualism, no nannying, no state interference, no protection for the vulnerable. There is no mention in this entire book of gender or power.

Where he is right is in his analysis of the judicial inquiry being now the "instrument of governance", and how this shows the loss of political legitimacy. But do Furedi and his crew want this faith in authority restored? As with much of the "radical" left, there is a deep disappointment with the working class, and thus the modus operandi becomes merely liberal baiting.

Living Marxism, if you remember, supported the Serbs and accused ITN of faking shots of a Serb-run detention camp. I shared a flat with one of its cult members in the days when they said Aids was a capitalist conspiracy. Nowadays they are more likely to get as agitated about the smoking ban as they are about Israel. They are anti-climate change and pro-hunting. They sound a little like Alan Partridge on the subject of health and safety gone mad, and Simon Heffer on political correctness having gone too far. Why would Furedi want to associate himself with such a dodgy bunch?

His rushed book on Savile is a bizarre and unsatisfactory contribution to any kind of "revolution". Instead it fits in neatly with the long-term establishment denial about the level of sexual abuse. One imagines Furedi and Guido Fawkes have much in common, all of it fairly nasty.

The morality of using a scandal about the sexual abuse of children to épater le bourgeois and talk of a crisis of authority is fairly dubious. This book has little to tell us about Savile or the culture he thrived in, never mind the one we find ourselves in now. It's a Furedi fantasy, rehashed and overspun. As pure sociology it appears under-researched, with little evidence to support many of its grander claims. And there is something missing, as far as I could see – any empathy whatsoever with the powerless.

Perhaps this is why, despite some media success as a movement (Claire Fox from Radio 4's Moral Maze is the institute's director), the odd little group that looks up to Furedi cannot grow. Though they pretend to promote reason, they suffer from a weird collective political Asperger's. They would rather prove a point than help anyone but themselves to power. Savile, emotionally unable to connect and regarding others only for his own ends, may have understood that. Thankfully I don't.

conniption wrote:

The Guardian

Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: the Jimmy Savile Scandal by Frank Furedi – review

A book about the Savile scandal shows no interest in the victims

Suzanne Moore
The Guardian, Wednesday 13 March 2013
comments (23)


Frank Furedi - Liberal baiting: sociology professor Frank Furedi. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Rex Features

It takes a special kind of man who, while the nation is still reeling in shock at the mounting revelations of the scale of abuse of children by a "light entertainer", quickly dashes out a book on our dumb propensity for moral panics. But then Frank Furedi is no ordinary academic. He is a predatory sociologist whose main aim is to reverse the self-absorbed narratives of the bourgeoisie. His day job is professor of sociology at the University of Kent, but by night … well? He was the leading ideologue of the Revolutionary Communist Party which morphed into the magazine Living Marxism and now operates as the Institute of Ideas. Then there is its online sideline spiked, the editor of which, Brendan O'Neill, is a sub-Danny Dyer obnoxious intellectual wind-up merchant.

I mention this because Furedi has an agenda – one which needs spelling out – for this is not really a book on Savile and certainly not about his victims. It's a counterblast against familiar moral panics. Furedi reworks his favourite themes: he dislikes the nanny state, paranoid parenting, therapy culture and "victimology". He always has some sensible points to make: the middle classes do over-protect their children. Disrupting our sentimentality about children is no bad thing. Words such as "trauma" get used so much they are stripped of meaning. But he arrives at a rightwing "libertarian" position – he is against intervention, when the reality is that under-resourced social services are being cut anyway.

So to rehearse all this during the Savile revelations is an odd mirroring of what is already happening, and Furedi, instead of challenging dominant thought, mostly reinforces it.

As more and more women came forward, the shock that people felt about the extent of the abuse and the kind of access Savile was given was real enough. It was not mere imaginings. Then a bout of odd self-flagellation by the BBC occurred. The reality of sexual abuse was eclipsed by a panic about the management of key institutions. Who had colluded? Who had known? Was "liking" young girls a part of the culture that we cannot retrospectively impose our standards on? In this febrile atmosphere, Furedi claims, a "moral crusade" was begun.

The context was the perceived "culture of sleaze" in our institutions. But to me it was clearly a huge exercise in displacement, in which the "victims", soon enough, were not the girls raped at 12 but highly paid TV executives, with their jobs at risk. It was easier to discuss this. Those who had bravely spoken up soon became forgotten again.

Furedi does exactly the same thing, and sidesteps the "victims" completely. He shows no interest in them, Savile or the culture in which this abuse was prevalent, beyond some Peter Hitchens-type mutterings about "the 60s". He takes us through other child abuse panics such as Cleveland and Orkney, and discusses "the narrative of abuse" Why? Do we doubt that Savile did these things? He sees a society that invests too much in children but distrusts its own institutions, arguing there is no point in trawling though history for victims, thereby pathologising all child-adult relationships. At times he denies that all violation causes long-term harm.

There are no actual voices of victims here because Furedi is against the affirmation of victimhood as an identity. Or perhaps because he couldn't bring himself to talk to actual people. This is another displacement then, for as he talks of moral crusades, it all becomes a meta-discourse in which the suffering of individuals is inconsequential. He is pretty close to a conspiracy theorist much of the time, while believing he is debunking such theorists. This is where "the radical left" merges with the "libertarian" right – selfish individualism, no nannying, no state interference, no protection for the vulnerable. There is no mention in this entire book of gender or power.

Where he is right is in his analysis of the judicial inquiry being now the "instrument of governance", and how this shows the loss of political legitimacy. But do Furedi and his crew want this faith in authority restored? As with much of the "radical" left, there is a deep disappointment with the working class, and thus the modus operandi becomes merely liberal baiting.

Living Marxism, if you remember, supported the Serbs and accused ITN of faking shots of a Serb-run detention camp. I shared a flat with one of its cult members in the days when they said Aids was a capitalist conspiracy. Nowadays they are more likely to get as agitated about the smoking ban as they are about Israel. They are anti-climate change and pro-hunting. They sound a little like Alan Partridge on the subject of health and safety gone mad, and Simon Heffer on political correctness having gone too far. Why would Furedi want to associate himself with such a dodgy bunch?

His rushed book on Savile is a bizarre and unsatisfactory contribution to any kind of "revolution". Instead it fits in neatly with the long-term establishment denial about the level of sexual abuse. One imagines Furedi and Guido Fawkes have much in common, all of it fairly nasty.

The morality of using a scandal about the sexual abuse of children to épater le bourgeois and talk of a crisis of authority is fairly dubious. This book has little to tell us about Savile or the culture he thrived in, never mind the one we find ourselves in now. It's a Furedi fantasy, rehashed and overspun. As pure sociology it appears under-researched, with little evidence to support many of its grander claims. And there is something missing, as far as I could see – any empathy whatsoever with the powerless.

Perhaps this is why, despite some media success as a movement (Claire Fox from Radio 4's Moral Maze is the institute's director), the odd little group that looks up to Furedi cannot grow. Though they pretend to promote reason, they suffer from a weird collective political Asperger's. They would rather prove a point than help anyone but themselves to power. Savile, emotionally unable to connect and regarding others only for his own ends, may have understood that. Thankfully I don't.

An 82-year-old Australian entertainer has been arrested on suspicion of sexual offences, by officers investigating former BBC star Jimmy Savile.

The pensioner from Berkshire, west of London, is one of 11 people arrested so far under Operation Yewtree, which is investigating people linked to Savile.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said there were three categories of people subject to the investigation: Savile himself, people close to the presenter and "others".

The 82-year-old is in the last category which "is generally people who were in the public spotlight at around that time", the spokesman said.
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The Berkshire man was interviewed under caution in late November 2012, five days after a search warrant was executed at his address in Berkshire.

Police stressed Thursday’s arrest was not connected to the specific allegations made against Savile.

The arrested man was bailed to a date in May, pending further inquiries.

No mainstream media have named the interviewed man, either when he was questioned previously or now.

A friend of the man's family last year expressed shock at the raging online rumour mill which had built on the internet.

The family friend, who declined to be named, asked then if the entertainer could have committed such offences, replied: ‘‘Absolutely not ... The whole thing is crazy.’’

A close family member, who lives in Sydney, then declined to make any comment.

Savile was a hugely popular but eccentric figure, famed for his shock of white hair, tracksuits and chunky gold jewellery, but since his death his reputation has been destroyed by revelations that he abused hundreds of children and women.

British police said earlier this year in a report into his activities that Savile "groomed the nation" over six decades, hiding behind his fame to assault girls, boys and adult women on BBC premises and in schools and hospitals.

The publicly-funded BBC made Savile one of its biggest stars in the 1970s and 1980s as presenter of BBC TV's Top of the Pops chart show and children's program Jim'll Fix It.

Rolf Harris arrested by Operation Yewtree police
Entertainer detained by officers investigating historic sex abuse allegations in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal

James Meikle and Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 April 2013 05.02 EDT

Rolf Harris has been arrested by Operation Yewtree police over historic sex abuse allegations. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Rolf Harris has been arrested by police investigating historic sex abuse allegations following the Jimmy Savile scandal, according to a report in the Sun.

The 83-year-old Australian, a TV fixture for decades for his music, art and as a presenter of TV shows about animals, first came to Britain more than 60 years ago.

A spokesperson for the Met said: "We are not discussing the name of the individual."

Harris was originally interviewed under caution by Scotland Yard officers on Operation Yewtree last November, five days after they visited his home in Berkshire when he was not there. The Met said in an earlier statement: "The man from Berkshire was interviewed under caution on suspicion of sexual offences after attending south London police premises by appointment. On 24 November 2012 officers had executed a search warrant at an address in Berkshire."

It is understood that Harris was arrested last month but not charged with any offence. He has been bailed until May.

The entertainer, made a CBE in 2006 and Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen's birthday honours last year, had been named in blogs and social media but not by mainstream media until Friday. Harris, one of 12 people arrested under Operation Yewtree, has made no public comment.

After Harris's arrest in March days before his 83rd birthday, a Scotland Yard spokesman said: "An 82-year-old man from Berkshire was arrested by officers on Operation Yewtree on suspicion of sexual offences. He has been bailed to a date in May pending further inquiries.

"The individual falls under the strand of the investigation we have termed 'others'."

These are individuals who have come to police attention as part of the Operation Yewtree investigation into Jimmy Savile but whose alleged offences are not connected to Savile.

Harris's hits include Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport and a version of Stairway to Heaven, and he painted an official portrait of the Queen for her 80th birthday.

Several high-profile figures have been arrested in connection with the investigation including the PR consultant Max Clifford, the comedian Freddie Star, the radio DJ Dave Lee Travis, the former TV producer Wilfred De'Ath and the comedian Jim Davidson. They all deny any wrongdoing and De'Ath was released without charge last month.

seemslikeadream wrote:

Rolf Harris arrested by Operation Yewtree police
Entertainer detained by officers investigating historic sex abuse allegations in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal

James Meikle and Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 April 2013 05.02 EDT

Rolf Harris has been arrested by Operation Yewtree police over historic sex abuse allegations. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Rolf Harris has been arrested by police investigating historic sex abuse allegations following the Jimmy Savile scandal, according to a report in the Sun.

The 83-year-old Australian, a TV fixture for decades for his music, art and as a presenter of TV shows about animals, first came to Britain more than 60 years ago.

A spokesperson for the Met said: "We are not discussing the name of the individual."

Harris was originally interviewed under caution by Scotland Yard officers on Operation Yewtree last November, five days after they visited his home in Berkshire when he was not there. The Met said in an earlier statement: "The man from Berkshire was interviewed under caution on suspicion of sexual offences after attending south London police premises by appointment. On 24 November 2012 officers had executed a search warrant at an address in Berkshire."

It is understood that Harris was arrested last month but not charged with any offence. He has been bailed until May.

The entertainer, made a CBE in 2006 and Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen's birthday honours last year, had been named in blogs and social media but not by mainstream media until Friday. Harris, one of 12 people arrested under Operation Yewtree, has made no public comment.

After Harris's arrest in March days before his 83rd birthday, a Scotland Yard spokesman said: "An 82-year-old man from Berkshire was arrested by officers on Operation Yewtree on suspicion of sexual offences. He has been bailed to a date in May pending further inquiries.

"The individual falls under the strand of the investigation we have termed 'others'."

These are individuals who have come to police attention as part of the Operation Yewtree investigation into Jimmy Savile but whose alleged offences are not connected to Savile.

Harris's hits include Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport and a version of Stairway to Heaven, and he painted an official portrait of the Queen for her 80th birthday.

Several high-profile figures have been arrested in connection with the investigation including the PR consultant Max Clifford, the comedian Freddie Star, the radio DJ Dave Lee Travis, the former TV producer Wilfred De'Ath and the comedian Jim Davidson. They all deny any wrongdoing and De'Ath was released without charge last month.