Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The now unmarked spot where Savile is buried

An extraordinary effort has taken place over recent weeks to wipe out painful reminders of Jimmy Savile. But can you erase all trace of a reviled person?

Plaques have been taken down, buildings renamed, street signs removed, two charities closed.

A footpath in Scarborough was Savile's View. Now the sign has gone. His freedom of the borough will be suspended.

A wall commemorating high-profile citizens in Leeds Civic Hall has had the inscription of Savile's name removed.

Officials are under immense pressure to take action.

Having said three weeks ago they would not change the name of Savile's Hall conference centre in Leeds, owner Royal Armouries International announced a change of mind this week at a cost of £50,000.

"Sir Jimmy's name and reputation are irrevocably tainted and we have to remove every trace," the managing director said.

A wooden statue in Glasgow has gone, as has a memorial plaque at the DJ and broadcaster's former Scarborough home. It had been defaced with "paedophile" and "rapist".

The Royal Marines training centre at Lympstone will have its Savile Room renamed. A photo and nameplate have already gone. A newspaper talked of them having "destroyed all remnants of the TV star".

At Jimmy Savile's grave, there is no gravestone. It was removed by his family and destroyed. Two charities named after him are closing.

The BBC has removed from its Desert Island Discs database a 1985 episode in which Savile says he got into running dance halls in order to get girls.

While some of the erasures are said to be temporary, pending the outcome of the investigation into the welter of allegations of sexual abuse against him, it is hard to imagine the honours returning.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Savile's cottage in Glencoe is one of several buildings and places which have been defaced

What is now happening to the memory of Savile has many parallels with the Penn State University sex abuse scandal. Jerry Sandusky was both a respected American football coach and also a prolific paedophile.

The scandal revolved around the university authorities' failure to act properly after Sandusky had been seen, in 2001, molesting a young boy in the showers.

The junior coach who witnessed the assault told his boss, legendary American football coach Joe Paterno, about the incident. Paterno passed it on to two of his superiors who in turn informed the president of the university.

But despite abuse having been witnessed, Sandusky - then retired - was allowed continued access to university premises. He went on to commit more abuse.

A subsequent inquiry by former FBI director Louis Freeh criticised four university leaders - including Paterno - saying they had "failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade".

It is helpful for the victims. The tricky issue is why wasn't it done before? Jennifer Wild, psychologist

After the scandal was uncovered, traces of Sandusky went. His face was removed from a mural. An ice cream flavour named after him disappeared.

But Paterno's legacy was also dismantled. The coach was fired, dying soon afterwards. Supporters of Paterno were outraged.

Amid intense dispute, his statue was removed and put in storage. It had become a "source of division", a statement by the university said.

The treatment of Paterno went as far as to alter his record as a coach. The college American football authorities "vacated" all of Penn State's wins during the period the abuse scandal had been going on.

The Sandusky and Savile erasures might all seem like small gestures, but they can help the victims of abuse, says consultant clinical psychologist Jennifer Wild, of Kings College London.

"It is helpful for the victims. The tricky issue is why wasn't it done before? Why wasn't it taken seriously, especially for the victims who came forward. Some victims are going to feel too little too late."

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Joe Paterno's statue was removed because of his failure to act properly over a child abuser

But when the accused is dead, as Savile is, and therefore beyond the reach of the law, there is a sense that the wiping out of honours serves as some sort of consolation to those seeking justice.

"It is one of the substitutes," says Wild. "Another is the change in public opinion. The fact they are going to be believed."

But can you rewrite history? Can you say Paterno didn't win those games? Is there an ethical duty to preserve the truth of what happened, no matter how unpalatable it might be?

Removing honours Image copyright Getty Images Honours forfeiture committee - convened by Cabinet Office - decides when honours should be revoked

Technically, honour dies with recipient, so in Savile's case, there is nothing to revoke

Forfeiture committee now reconsidering situation in wake of recent events

Those who have lost knighthood include traitor Anthony Blunt (pictured) Could Jimmy Savile lose knighthood?

"If they were literally denying that he had won those titles that would be bizarre," says philosopher Roger Crisp, a fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. "But in taking names off the roll of honour what they are saying is that they don't want to honour him."

There is a distinction between distorting the truth in the hope of forgetting, and making a public statement that someone should not be honoured.

The physical vestiges of the careers of immoral people always present dilemmas.

While all traces of Savile may soon have disappeared from BBC buildings, every day staff walk past a sculpture created by an abuser.

Prospero and Ariel, which adorns BBC Broadcasting House in London, was carved by Eric Gill. The sculptor recorded in his diaries abusing his daughters.

Gill's Stations of the Cross is inside Westminster Cathedral. The Catholic authorities have resisted the idea of removing them because of Gill's status as an abuser.

There is a difference of course between honours - pictures of Savile in BBC buildings, places named after him - and the art of Gill, or even the music of Gary Glitter.

There was a reaction against Glitter's music in the wake of his conviction for child pornography and his subsequent imprisonment for child abuse in Vietnam. American sports stadiums that had played Rock and Roll Pt 2 reconsidered.

With music there is always the knowledge that publicly playing music, or buying music, gives money to the creator.

Image caption Prospero and Ariel - on the front of Broadcasting House - was sculpted by self-confessed abuser Eric Gill

But it would be entirely consistent if a statue depicting Gill was removed from his hometown, while the same town had a retrospective of Gill's art, argues Crisp.

As bloggers have already noted, the Romans would have understood the Savile erasures as damnatio memoriae - the damnation of the memory. For the enemies of the Roman emperors Domitian and Geta, even their deaths were not enough.

Heads were smashed off statues, names were chiselled off tablets. The aim was to pretend they had never existed at all.

The process also happened in ancient Egypt after the death of the heretical monotheist pharaoh Akhenaten.

But the strange thing about damnatio memoriae is that the very knowledge of the concept rather indicates that it could never succeed. Whatever they did to memorials of Geta and Domitian, we still know they existed.

The same may apply to Savile. People will be able to see the spot where a plaque to him once rested. They may know that a path was once named after him.

Savile's name and the memory of what he did will not disappear.

But the efforts to eradicate honours may eventually offer a scintilla of solace to victims.

"I'm treating patients now and the whole Jimmy Savile case is a reminder. It is hard but it is going to be a reminder things are being done," says Wild.