Exclusive: Former Surrey Police officer kept in dark over other Savile allegations

A former police officer who worked on the Surrey Police investigation into Jimmy Savile from 2007-09 has told ITV News his team weren't informed of allegations against the TV presenter made to the Metropolitan and Jersey Police forces.

In an exclusive interview, the former officer, who has to remain anonymous, told ITV News his Surrey team weren't made aware of the Savile allegations received by the Metropolitan Police in the 1980s or 2003, or an allegation to Jersey Police in 2008.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe said on Monday that allegations against Savile weren't linked to show "a pattern of behaviour".

Asked if the team knew about these allegations, the officer said: "No I didn’t, we had very little information that came as the result of intelligence checks.

"We weren’t told about it... it may have caused warning bells to ring a bit more if intelligence of previous incidents was known. It may have changed things."

He added: "Now it looks like he might be the worst ever serial sex offender. It's a real shame we couldn’t get sufficient evidence.

"If the women had agree to go to court we could have had a case that stood up, that would have passed the test for a charge. To be fair, and I understand it, how can you take a case to court if the victims don’t want to support the evidence?"

But the former officer defended the police investigation, saying: "I felt it was thorough. The DPP are reviewing it, they may have some comments saying 'we could have done this or that' and I'll take it on the chin.

"We followed the evidence where it took us, spoke to all the potential witnesses and victims we could identify. The problem was we didn’t know then what we know now."

He also confirmed there was no contact with the BBC at that time. "There was no information then regarding offences on BBC property," said the former officer.