The report detailed poor police procedures, missed opportunities and an unwillingness to pursue accusations against one of the country’s biggest celebrities, whose renown also inhibited victims from coming forward.

“One of the reasons why allegations were not made at the time, or investigations were not conducted as they might have been, centers on Savile’s status,” the report said. “He was a well-known national celebrity, praised for his substantial fund-raising efforts, and a household name to many.”

The home secretary, Theresa May, who is responsible for law enforcement in Britain, said: “This report brings into sharp focus police failings that allowed Savile to act with impunity over five decades. While we can never right this wrong, we must learn the lessons to prevent the same from ever happening again.”

Mr. Savile died in 2011 at the age of 84. The revelations since then about his predatory sexual behavior have shocked Britons, who watched his popular BBC programs for decades, including “Top of the Pops,” a weekly music countdown, and “Jim’ll Fix It,” in which Mr. Savile promised to grant young viewers’ wishes. Claims that he abused some victims on BBC premises, and missteps by the BBC in coverage of the accusations, plunged the broadcaster into crisis.

According to Tuesday’s report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which reviews police forces and policing in England and Wales and answers to Parliament, the police were first alerted to accusations of sex crimes by Mr. Savile in Cheshire in 1963. On that occasion, a male reported to a local police officer that Mr. Savile had raped him the day before, but was told to “forget about it” and “move on,” and no official crime report was made or investigation undertaken, the inspectorate’s report said.

Later, when another man reported to the police that his girlfriend had been assaulted at a recording of “Top of the Pops,” which featured a studio audience, the man was told that he “could be arrested for making such allegations,” the document said.

During Mr. Savile’s lifetime, the inspectorate found, the police recorded five accusations of criminal conduct and two further pieces of intelligence about his behavior; the earliest of these formal entries in the records dated from 1964. “We have not found evidence to suggest that any investigation was carried out as a result of that intelligence,” the document said.

Since Mr. Savile’s death in 2011, more than 600 people have come forward with information about him, including 450 who have made specific accusations.

The report said that over nearly four decades, police systems meant to spot connections and patterns among accusations made in different parts of the country were used incorrectly or not at all. For example, an anonymous letter to the police in 1998 was classified as “sensitive” intelligence because of Mr. Savile’s celebrity status and because there were accusations of blackmail and pedophilia; that classification meant that it was not readily available to other police officers, the report said.

“There was intelligence available of four separate investigations, which was never linked together, and because of that failure to ‘join the dots,’ there was a failure to understand the potential depth of Savile’s criminality,” the report said. “As a result, it is clear from our analysis that the potential for further investigation and a prosecution of Savile was missed.”

It added: “Because of the way in which both victims were dealt with, there are no records available in the police forces concerned. It leads us to the conclusion, however, that we will never be certain of the number of victims who tried to report Savile to the police.”

The report said that though such systems had since been improved, they could still fail.

The head of the inspectorate, Drusilla Sharpling, said in a statement: “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. However, an equally profound problem is that victims felt unable to come forward and report crimes of sexual abuse. More needs to be done, and it is neither enough nor correct to say ‘This couldn’t happen now.’ ”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/world/europe/british-report-says-police-failed-to-pursue-savile-sex-charges.html?partner=rss&emc=rss