One of the key lessons of the Savile affair is that villainy flourishes where denial prevails. Plenty of people now say they suspected Savile was even stranger than he seemed, and now that he is dead, everyone including the Broadcasting House cat claims to know that the BBC was harbouring a one-man sex-crime epidemic. No one said anything or did anything at the time because, well, it was better not to, and didn’t he do all that good work in the hospitals? And then, of course, he was no longer around to defend himself. Just as no one was around to defend the victims.