The family, friends and BBC execs who looked the other way to Jimmy Savile’s sickening crimes: New Steve Coogan drama The Reckoning points to people who turned a blind eye to Top of the Pops presenter’s campaign of evil

The BBC’s controversial Jimmy Savile drama The Reckoning is packed with characters who appear to have aided and abetted him.

Others including his own mother, played expertly by Gemma Jones, knew he was a liar – and suspected him of much worse – but failed to speak out as they were seduced by his wealth and fame.

The four-part series starring Steve Coogan began last night and shows how the broadcaster became a sex monster who hid in plain sight.

Episode one begins with Savile and his wingman, fellow abuser Ray Teret, grooming young girls together after picking them up at club nights in Leeds, where staff helped grab victims off the dance floor so the DJs could attack them.

BBC executives are shown ignoring warnings about Savile’s character because they were desperate for him to host Top of the Pops, a show Savile used as a cover to abuse countless people including children. Even when one 15-year-old killed herself after he raped her – the Beeb’s bosses still stood by him because TotP was a ratings hit. 

And even his mother, who he worshipped and called The Duchess, tells a priest of his ‘sins’ and the ‘terrible darkness in him’.

These are real life characters who appear in The Reckoning, the actors who played them, and what they were like in real life:

Jimmy Savile’s Mother: Agnes ‘The Duchess’ Kelly, played by Gemma Jones

The Reckoning shows Jimmy Savile’s mother’s doubts about her son

 Savile with his mother, Agnes, at a Variety Club lunch, London, September 1965.

Agnes, played by Gemma Jones, confesses that she suspects her son has ‘darkness’ in him and carries out mortal sins

Food for thought: Steve Coogan films in his role of Jimmy Savile in a scene set in 1970. Agnes accepted her son’s cash and gifts

BAFTA-winning actress Gemma Jones plays Agnes Kelly, the mother of Jimmy Savile.  She died in 1972, a time where her son was prolifically abusing women and children.

In The Reckoning Savile’s mother, whom he called ‘The Duchess’, is repeatedly shown being disapproving of her son’s behaviour, clothing and lifestyle.

In one scene she confesses to a Catholic priest that she didn’t love him and that her sixth son was an unhappy accident.

She also admits: ‘I worry that there is terrible darkness in him’ – and that he has committed mortal sins – grave acts that can lead to damnation if a person does not repent.

But later in the episode she accepts a new home from him by the sea in Scarborough and before her death she was delighted and ‘proud’ when he received an OBE and presented Songs of Praise. 

Savile claimed before his death that she was unable to give him much affection when he was growing up, but hinted at some understanding between mother and son, saying that after she raised him for the first half of his life, he raised her as he became older and more independent.

In a 2011 interview with The Sunday People he said: ‘My mother never got round to being proud. If anyone said, “What is Jimmy like?” she would say, “I don’t know what he’s up to, but he’s up to something”.

The chauffeur: Ray Teret, played by Robert Emms

Robert Emms, known for his roles in Chernobyl and Atlantis, plays the part of Ray Teret, who was Savile’s chauffeur

Ex-Radio Caroline DJ Ray Teret (pictured) used his celebrity status in the Manchester club scene in the 1960s and 1970s to prey on many of his victims

Emms as Teret, groping a victim as Savile watched

Teret, who was nicknamed The Rat because of his looks, was later jailed for sex attacks on young girls

Ray Teret was Jimmy Savile’s friend, co-conspirator, chauffeur and later a convicted sex attacker.

Teret, a former Radio Caroline DJ who had nicknames including The Rat and ‘Ugli Ray’, was mentored by Savile in the 1960s.

The pair became so close that people referred to Teret as Savile’s ‘shadow’ and drove the star around the country in the 1960s and 1970s.

He used his celebrity status in the Manchester club scene in the 1960s and 1970s to prey on many of his victims.

In 2014 he was found guilty of seven rapes and 11 indecent assaults on girls as young as 13. Teret was acquitted of assisting Savile to rape an alleged victim, but was found guilty of raping the same complainant himself. 

He died in Strangeways Prison in Manchester in May 2021.

Robert Emms, known for his roles in Chernobyl and Atlantis, played the part of Teret.

Top of Pops producer: Johnnie Stewart, played by Julian Rhind-Tutt 

Johnnie Stewart, played by Julian Rhind-Tutt with Steve Coogan as Jimmy Savile

Johnnie Stewart working on Top of the Pops in December 1964

Johnnie Stewart is portrayed as the man who brought Jimmy Savile into the BBC.

Stewart described TotP as ‘the simplest show in the world’ – taking Jimmy Savile’s Radio Luxembourg show to the TV screen.

In The Reckoning Stewart is portrayed as someone who defended Savile when Top of the Pops audience members began claiming Savile attacked them.

A 15-year-old girl would kill herself after being raped but he believed Savile when he said they had never met, saying that ‘pop music is about sex’.

Savile even credited him with bringing him into the BBC.

He said before his death: ‘We did a programme called the ‘Teen and Twenty Record Club’ with all sorts of people on it as a pilot. When the BBC said they liked it, it was at the behest of the children of the BBC moguls who were being forced to acknowledge pop music. The BBC, being the BBC, rejigged it and said they liked it and they want to do it but they are going to call it ‘Top of the Pops’.

He said: ‘I got a call from Johnnie Stewart. He said: “My name’s Johnnie Stewart, I’m working on Top of the Pops based on your thingy, can you work with me on it?”

‘So for the first six weeks before TOTP, John and I had the enormously difficult task of trying to decide what was going to be in the top ten six weeks hence. And out of the eight records we played on the first show six of them were in the charts and that was as big a miracle as you could get in the pop world’.

The BBC Controller: Bill Cotton, played by Michael Jibson

Bill Cotton (left in the drama) with Anna Instone, a BBC exec who warned them not to go near Savile

Bill Cotton played a part in overseeing shows such as Morecambe and wise, the Two Ronnies, Porridge, Monty Python and Dad’s Army

In one scene the BBC’s Head of Gramophone Anna Instone says she heard Savile was ‘an absolute s**t – vain, overbearing and untrustworthy’, adding: ‘Personally I wouldn’t touch him with a barge pole’.

But Cotton ignored this, declaring: ‘He’s our man’ when asked if Savile should host Top of the Pops. 

BBC bosses have denied long-awaited Jimmy Savile drama is a ‘face-saving exercise’. The four episodes of The Reckoning portray events up until Savile’s death in 2011.

But it does not dramatise the massive fall-out at the BBC over the way bosses buried an earlier investigation into the star.

Executive producer Jeff Pope said the programme examined how the Jim’ll Fix It star had died ‘without what he’d done being brought to light’, adding ‘that was the story we wanted to tell’.

He claimed the series had ‘dealt with what happened after his death’ and did not ‘ignore the fact that the BBC dropped Newsnight and put out a glowing tribute instead’.

Steve Coogan said suggestions the series was a ‘face-saving exercise by the BBC’ were ‘not true’.

Olivier Award-winning actor Jibson plays Cotton, who was the BBC’s Head of Light Entertainment when Savile worked for the broadcaster as a DJ.

He played a part in overseeing shows such as Morecambe and Wise, the Two Ronnies, Porridge, Monty Python and Dad’s Army.

Jibson’s acting career has seen him appear in a variety of series and films, such as Les Miserables, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 1917, and The Riot Club.

The hospital porter: Charles Hullighan played by Mark Lewis Jones

Charles Hullighan watches on in the drama as Savile flirts with nurses

Savile, played by Steve Coogan, attacks a girl at Leeds Royal Infirmary

Poise: Mark Lewis Jones plays Charles Hulligan, who was a friend of Savile and a head hospital porter.

Charles Hullighan was an Army veteran who was stabbed while serving in India. He was discharged from the forces and then took a job at Leeds Royal Infirmary.

Savile’s mother Agnes knew him and suggested his son contact him. Savile then imposed himself on the hospital, volunteering as a porter, which allowed him to attack patients, rope nurses and even perform sex acts on dead bodies.

Episode one of The Reckoning shows Hullighan initially trying to ban Savile from the hospital – but the star told him to ‘f*** off’.

Later Hullighan, who also ran the hospital’s radio service, would allow him to use his office and allowed him free access to the Infirmary as he became more famous, especially when that fame led to celebrities visiting the hospital.

The clubland boss: Eric Morley, played by Neil Pearson 

Savile and Eric Morley, played by Neil Pearson, in The Reckoning

Eric Morley, club boss and founder of the Miss World beauty pageant in 1974

Morley walks in on Savile as he is about to attack a girl but appears to turn a blind eye, accepting Savile’s story that she had lost her ticket

Eric Morley’s relationship with Savile started in the 1960s in Leeds, where the paedophile ran dances.

Savile would get staff to pick girls out of the crowd so he could abuse them. 

The Reckoning shows Eric Morley when general manager of dancing at Mecca Leisure Group, where Jimmy Savile performed from 1960.

At one point Morley disturbs him as he tries to abuse a young girl – but Morley turns a blind eye because of the cash Savile was making him. 

Later, watching the packed dancefloor, Morley thanks Savile for helping his business and calls him ‘The Man’. 

In real life Morley would go on to found the Miss World beauty pageant,

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