During my second year of my law degree I studied criminology as my elective module. My favourite criminological topic we covered was psychopaths. These are very interesting people who are commonly misdefined in many legal systems. In this article, I will consider what a psychopath is and whether Jimmy Savile could be considered a psychopath.
What is a psychopath?
Unfortunately for criminologists there is no one uniform definition of a psychopath. In his book
The Mask of Sanity, Hervey Cleckley outlines 16 features of a psychopath. This was not designed to be a exhaustive list nor a list that the individual needs to satisfy completely in order to be classified as a psychopath. Here are Cleckley's 10 features of a psychopath taken from The Mask of Sanity:
1.Intelligent and superficially charming
2. No delusions or signs of abnormal thinking- hence the psychopath 'masks' his insanity
3. Absence of anxiety and ability to remain calm and communicative/ Ability to lie convinicingly and act insincerely
4. Irresponisble / impulsive attitude
6. Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior/ Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience.
7. Selfishness and egocentricity
8. Failure to feel deep lasting emotions/ Lack of empathy
9. Vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts and possible enjoyment of pranks that others may deem 'too much'
10. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated sex life.
Was Jimmy Savile a psychopath?
Intelligent and superficially charming
It is clear from Savile's ability to get away with such horrendous crimes for many decades that he must have been an intelligent man. His ability to charm his way into a position of power and Broadmoor shows his ability to calculate and carry out the best way to sexually abuse patients and get away with it. His charm is evident in any TV performance he gave and many victims have described his charm as one of the many reasons that no one believed them when they reported his crimes and in some cases his charm was the reason they trusted him to be in their hospital rooms/ dorms etc. This aticle evidences such an incident http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jun/26/jimmy-savile-institutions-victims-abuse.
Savile's intelligence and charm got him into power at Broadmoor and enabled him to abuse numerous patient and perhaps, as is now alleged, corpses. http://ukpaedos-exposed.com/the-civil-servant-in-the-home-offices-pie-funding-inquiry-and-his-academic-articles-on-boy-love/councillorspolitical-party-affiliated/cover-ups/bbc-spent-more-than-22million-on-staff-gagging-pay-offs/esther-rantzen-was-she-ignorant-to-child-abuse/jimmy-saville-witch-hunt-or-paedophile/savile-broadmoor-necrophilia/
Therefore it is clear that Savile satisfies the first feature of a psychopath.
No delusions or signs of abnormal thinking- hence the psychopath 'masks' his insanity
What is also clear from the Savile case is that not many people suspected that he was in any way insane. There are people who knew about his crimes however no one is making the claim that he was in anyway insane. There are no reports of delusions or abnormal thinking in terms of mental illness. Of course his thinking that it was acceptable to rape and abuse children and vulnerable adults and his suspected necrophillia is not in any way normal thinking. However, there does not appear to be any evidence to suggest that he was delusional. Therefore Savile satisfies this feature of a psychopath.
Absence of anxiety and ability to remain calm and communicative/ Ability to lie convinicingly and act insincerely
It is clear from the copious amounts of TV footage of Savile that he maintained his ability to stay calm and captivate an audience even when there are children on stage with him who have claimed he had raped them hours before shooting for TV programmes. This article demonstrates Savile's ability to act normally and convince a school that it should allow him access to its pupils as he was treated as 'royalty' because he was a celebrity who the children thought would bring them 'cigarettes, sweets and records' http://www.featureworld.co.uk/recent-2012/storysold94-jimmy-savile-victim/ Therefore it is also clear that Savile satisfies this feauture of a psychopath
Irresponisble/ impulsive attitude
Given that Savile died having never been convicted of any of his alleged crimes it is clear that he was irresposible. He never admitted any crimes or took responibility for the victims he impregnanted or the child concieved. This article shows that he even went as far as to convince one 16 year old pregnant victim to convince doctors that she would comit suicide if she was denied an abortion
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2670444/Jimmy-Savile-abused-corpses-boasted-jewellery-glass-eyes-NHS-report-reveals-shocking-new-details-paedophiles-crimes.html.
Many other reports also demonstrate that Savile was impulsive in that he had a tendency to show up unnanouced in order to abuse and groom his victims. This article demonstrates how he would appear in teenager's dorms and grope them and then the victims would be dismissed as troublemakers and liars who sold sex for cigarettes http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10844944 This shows that Savile had the irresponsible and impulsive attitude of a psychopath
Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior/ Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience.
Given that Savile's alleged abuse spanned over more than a quarter of a century it is clear that he did not learn from or regret any of the crimes he commited. It seems certain that he justified his crude words and provocative behaviour as a love for young pretty women. Clearly an inadequate motivate and a mask for a truely dark desire to rape, assault and destroy children and vulnerable adults lives. The Huffington Post even reported Savile boasting about his ring made out of dead patients' false eyes. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/06/26/jimmy-saville-glass-eye-rings_n_5532464.html This shows Savile's severe lack of judgement and therefore demonstates his psychopathic tendencies
The 'eyeball ring' that Savile was referring to. Source:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/5716974/jimmy-savile-made-rings-from-glass-eyes-of-the-dead.html
Selfishness and egocentricity
Savile's desire for fame, fortune and power in order to cover up his crimes shows his deep set selfishness. His ability to believe that he was entitled to perform such hideous crimes against such young/ vulnerable people shows that he really did believe that he was the centre of the universe and his 'needs' deserved to be met. Godley's research into Savile's psychological profile shows him to be a narcissistic evil predator who believed he was obsessed with his own self image and fame. The reasearch write up can be found by following this link http://thewritingowl.hubpages.com/hub/Narcissistic-Personality-Disorder-Paedophilia-and-Jimmy-Savile and is good evidence that Savile showed the egocentricity of a psychopath.
Failure to feel deep lasting emotions/Lack of empathy
Savile has now allegedly raped and abused up to 500 women and children. In the past few days it has also been alleged that he was a necrophile who molested and raped bodies in the Morgues of Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville Hospital. If these accusations are true then this is the best way we can prove that Savile lacked empathy. The longevity of his crimes show that if he ever did feel any remorse it was fleeting and did not prevent him from continuing his life of rape and necrophilia. For more details on Savile's alleged crimes please read the live updates on this link and see for yourself hoe it demonstrates his psychopathy http://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/sir%20jimmy%20savile
Vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts and possible enjoyment of pranks that others may deem 'too much'
Perhaps most obviously Savile was noted for his vulger and rude remarks and this shows that he had this trait of a psychopath. Savile was reported as saying that he would give Amanda Holden an 'gynaecological problem' when he met her aged 19 at Leeds General Infirmary http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470012/Amanda-Holden-Jimmy-Savile-lewd-comments-hospital.html
Savile also famously said that peadophile, Gary Glitter 'did nothing wrong' http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/01/jimmy-savile-claimed-paedophile-gary-glitter-did-nothing-wrong_n_1928119.html
These incidents and many more show that Savile was quick to change from a serious and charming personality to gain access to potential victims to a vulgar predator who made inappropriate comments to women and children. It also suggests that despite no publication on pranks Savile may have enjoyed inappropriate pranks in the same way he seemed to thrive on making comments that make most people want to be sick.
An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated sex life.
Given the nature of Savile's alleged rape, sexual assualt and necrophila charges it is clear that his sex life was everything but normal and so he satisfies this feature of a psychopath. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/celebrity-news/late-tv-star-jimmy-savile-faces-new-necrophilia-allegations/article19346640/
Conclusion
Based on the above analysis of the alleged crimes of Jimmy Savile it is clear that he can be labelled a psychopath. My aim for this article was to decipher how we as members of the public should approach the media reports on Savile and also help us to understand him. We need to understand the crimes of Savile in order to understand how to prevent them. The first way to do this is decide what type of criminal he was, a psychopath. The next steps we can take to understand Jimmy Savile ways are expertly decribed by Oliver James in his article for The Guardian published yesterday (26th June) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/26/inside-the-mind-of-jimmy-savile