The Story Of Exposing Jimmy Savile - Mark Williams-Thomas | Modern Wisdom Podcast 369

A large majority of sex offenders use power as an influence with their offending behavior, and I think that power played massively into him. You know, he was a completely narcissistic, egotistical control freak, and had his way, you know, nearly all the time. So when he thought that, "Well, I want it, I'll have it," he just went and did it. And of course, nobody challenged him. He was fairly untouchable. He was fairly unchallengeable. And he lived a consistent lie. (wind blowing)

How would you describe what you do for work?

Well, I, I think now, it's probably as an investigative reporter. I, I do do some private consultancy, and I also run a risk management consultancy where I investigate and help organizations with dangerous offenders. So I'm a pretty busy person.

But you used to be a police officer, right? So what's the difference between a police officer and an investigator?

So yeah, former police detective. Uh, and not a massive amount, certainly not the way that I do it. I mean, there, there are many different investigators out there who do things in different ways. But my ethos and the way I operate is very much along the same lines as if I were a detective. Obviously, I don't have the powers of being a detective. I don't have the warrant. But what I do have is the skills that I've learned from being a police detective, and I just transfer them into the roles that I do now. I have the same ethical approach. I have the same, uh, moral approach in terms of how I do things. And all of my investigations are built around as if I was doing it for a criminal investigation, so the same levels of standards apply.

What are some of the restrictions that you have placed on yourself? Obviously, you're not gonna be able to go and arrest people, so is it your job as an investigator to put together a, a kind of case and then pass that up to authorities that can bring people to justice? How does it work?

Yeah, so obviously, I don't have power of arrest, so I can't force people to talk to me. I can't force people to come with me and do things. But, uh, as an investigator, in the way that I work within the media, often, that actually doesn't make that much of a difference 'cause what it does mean is that people will talk to me, and they'll often talk to me when they wouldn't talk to the police. And they'll give me information that they wouldn't or don't give to the police. So I have a, a great opportunity, I think, when I go and do these investigations as not being a police officer. That said, of course, I don't have access to the records that police officers do, so I can't gain as much information about people. Uh, but what I have to use is my own sources and also, the open source data that exists around the internet to try and find information about people when I'm doing an investigation. My ethos always is about helping people. So whenever I take on any investigation, uh, the starting point is, can I make a difference? Because more often than not, by the time people have come to me is they've tried everything else. They've failed with the police. They've failed with all the other organizations or media outlets. And they come to me in desperation. Can I help them? And what I will never want to do is to give people false hope. It is about being realistic to them. So if I can't, genuinely can't see anything that I can do as far as adding value, I'm no wizard, but what I do is obviously, um, thoroughly investigate and use my skills very successfully. If I can't help them, then I'll be honest upfront and say, "Look, uh, there is, there is nothing I can do," because there's nothing worse than being given false hope.