The trustees of the Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust are not donating any funds to the National Association for People Abused in Childhood – despite NAPAC seeing demand for its services rocket following last year’s revelations about the disgraced former TV personality. 

NAPAC’s chief executive Peter Saunders has revealed that he made a speculative enquiry to the Trust in early October 2012, shortly after an ITV documentary both exposed Savile’s activities and advised victims of abuse to get in touch with NAPAC.

In the email, dated 8 October 2012, Saunders wrote: “NAPAC is the only national charity that supports adult survivors of childhood abuse.

“I can only begin to imagine the turmoil your Trust must be going through at the moment. NAPAC is also experiencing an unprecedented deluge of calls and inquiries from survivors of all ages. We have also been supporting at least three women who allege sexual violation at the hands of the late Sir Jimmy Savile.

“I would be more than happy to discuss any way our respective organisations might work together to bring hope and healing to those who need us. I gather from the press that your trustees might be considering supporting survivors in some way. If so I would like to talk to you.”

He immediately received a reply from [email protected] saying: “Thank you for your email which we will discuss at our next meeting. Regards, trustees.”

However, after not receiving anything further after several months, Saunders emailed again in April this year and finally received a reply in the middle of May, which read: “The trustees have now made their decisions as to which charities they are able to support and unfortunately have not been able to include Support for Survivors [sic] at this time.”

NAPAC 'took brunt of Savile fallout'

Sauders told civilsociety.co.uk: "I think if the Trust is supporting local survivors' groups, then we should applaud them for that - but given that we took the brunt of the Savile fallout [after NAPAC's number was given at the end of the first ITV documentary], we think they have a moral obligation to help us out.

"We just got our phone bill for last year which was £1,000 higher than the year before. That might sound trivial, but it's our donors who are effectively subsidising Jimmy Savile and his offending - and I think the Trust should have considered talking to us."

Sources told civilsociety.co.uk that the funds from the Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust remain frozen, and that it looks likely that nothing will be left over once the estate has been used to pay claims and legal fees.

Both the Jimmy Savile Charitable Trust and the Jimmy Savile Stoke Mandeville Hospital Trust announced in October they were winding up.

Want access to all civilsociety.co.uk content? Subscribers gain access to all expert advice, analysis, surveys, special reports and the full archive of content from as little as £43.20 per year. Find out more...