It is now a week since the trickle of allegations against Jimmy Savile turned into a torrent and the BBC is still taking a ferocious kicking from the tabloids and other envious commercial rivals who can see the Beeb's privileged vices more clearly than its many virtues. But what about their own failure here?

On this occasion the BBC's critics make a powerful case that senior management turned a blind eye to Savile's alleged abuse of young people. It's not hard to see why, but its explanations have been unpersuasive. Adults then had more unquestioned authority over children; the public and (especially) police were less bothered.

Savile was a star; rich, famous and – we can now see – brutally cunning. Those who should have acted chose the comfy options. Kids who dared complain about "Uncle Jimmy" were punished. His charity work helped build him a 24/7 alibi.

But what about the righteous tabloids themselves? This question matters too, more than usually so because Lord Justice Leveson is probably still reading them every day with rubber gloves on while he finalises his report on press regulation. Never mind, M'Lud, you won't have to read them for much longer. Let us hope you understand the merits of such newspapers as well as their defects, better than you did when I last listened to you in court 73 at the high court.

At the weekend pro-regulation warriors in the Hacked Off campaign warned Leveson not to back down on tough regulation for the media or let David Cameron back off for him – as the prime minister seems to have been hinting this week. That's fine, the press can't be trusted to self-regulate any more than lawyers or medics can be trusted, I think that's pretty clearly established now. But I share widespread concern – you're cross about that concern, I suspect – that you may come up with high-minded but unworkable solutions.

Meanwhile, what about the tabs and Savile? Why didn't they nail him when so many people knew or suspected something wasn't right? Myself I always thought he was a dodgy bugger (we all feel that about some people in public life, yes, Robert Maxwell for example), but I never watched his programmes. Not my problem.

I have asked tabloid friends what happened. Well, it mostly took place in the pre-internet age, so paedophiles couldn't make contact (and be caught) online. Uncle Jimmy, cunning chap, never had a computer, we're told. Such complaints as there were came from isolated young people to different forms of authority – the police, school, newspapers, the BBC – which couldn't know what the others knew. "That assists rumour, but doesn't put together a solid case," one veteran journalist reminds me.

Savile himself, like many such predators, was very crafty. The girls were often from damaged backgrounds and usually vulnerable as teenagers are. They weren't believed, just as those kids abused by sex rings today were often not believed or written off as willing volunteers – not least by the police.

Why not set up Savile with a tough female reporter as bait? Can you imagine how the defence lawyers would play that case – criminal or libel – when a well-loved public figure, hero of many a charity, was in the dock, ask my tabloid friends?

"I was set up by a wicked journalist," would be the cry. Such cases happen, the accused realises it's a sting and wins.

The BBC and Guardian would have joined Lord Justice Leveson in the outcry against the tabloid responsible, tabloid reporters remind me with some bitterness. Oh dear, I fear that might – might – be true. In reality the tabs routinely spike stories on grounds of taste and judgment as well as legal concerns. There was one such case involving a well-known public figure spiked only the other day, I'm told. "Leveson will never hear about it," says one colleague.

What was needed was a credible victim willing to testify. There were several missed opportunities and at least one suspected suicide. Esther Rantzen, who was a BBC star who went on to start ChildLine and knew Savile, is full of regret. I bet she is. Plenty of others too. In 2007 Surrey police interviewed him under caution, but lacked evidence to proceed. In 2008 Savile started legal proceedings against the Sun, activity designed to scare off investigators, after being linked to the scandal at the Jersey children's home.

It's far from satisfactory, but it is understandable, Lord Leveson please note.

On the other hand, why the honours?

There may have been little harm in giving him an OBE for charity work (1971), but a knighthood? More to the point, a papal knighthood too? Savile was a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great (KCSG), the Pope doesn't give those away on cereal boxes; among the many celebs with them is Rupert Murdoch, albeit at a lower level than Uncle Jimmy, so far as I can see.

Doesn't the honours scrutiny committee and assorted lesser committees do any discreet vetting of the private character of recipients? Doesn't the pope have a bloke who watches out for his reputation? Even to ask the question is to invite peals of laughter, given the number of dodgy types who used to be honoured, less so now in Britain, I think.

And don't think the K was nodded through in a fit of New Labour sentimentality. Sir Jim Arose in the birthday honours of mid-1990, when steely Margaret Thatcher was still in No 10. The papal K arrived the same year, when steely John Paul II was pope and the prefect for the sacred congregation for the doctrine of the faith (1981-2005) – the head of the Vatican's intelligence service and its inquisition – was the future Pope Benedict XVI.

As Pope Benny's old friend and critic Hans Kung pointed out in the Guardian last week, he already has enough to answer for in covering up sexual abuse of children by priests without having Uncle Jim's sordid career dropped on his doorstep.

In Birmingham this week I met a disillusioned Catholic businessman who is pursuing this matter vigorously with the Catholic hierarchy. Comment is Free is asking readers about removing that UK knighthood. Some of Savile's friends still think that would be monstrous.