Sir Jimmy Savile turns out to have a dubious past with young women.
“That was no surprise,” said a friend.
I nodded along, but wasn’t it? I’m struggling to remember whether he fell into the category of Looks Like A Wierdo Therefore He Must Be A Pervert or whether I’d heard the rumours everyone else seems to have known about.
I am reminded of Christopher Jefferies, Jo Yate’s neighbour. Jo was the landscape architect in Bristol, murdered and dumped by the side of the road around Christmas 2010; Jefferies, a wild-haired, not-of-this-world academic initially arrested by the police on suspicion of her murder. The actual murderer turned out to be Vincent Tabak, her good-looking, ‘normal’, Dutch neighbour.
That Jimmy Savile falls into the Looks Like A Wierdo And Is A Wierdo only reinforces the stereotype for those unfortunates innocently accused.
I can think of a few more personalities who could fall into either category, but how to tell until it’s too late?
