Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
What legal and diplomatic implications would a proposed pardon of Jimmy Savile have had in 2016–2020?
Executive summary
A hypothetical pardon of Jimmy Savile between 2016–2020 would have raised immediate legal and diplomatic issues tied to his posthumous criminal revelations and to public trust in UK institutions: Savile was publicly exposed after his 2011 death as having sexually abused hundreds, with inquiries (e.g. Dame Janet Smith’s review) documenting dozens of victims [1]. Public and political fallout would likely have focused on accountability for prosecutorial decisions and the reputational damage to the UK and its bodies that investigated or cleared him [2] [3].
1. Legal basics: What a pardon of a dead person would mean in UK law
A pardon is ordinarily a measure that mitigates or removes criminal liability; applying it posthumously is legally unusual in the UK and would not erase the evidentiary record that multiple inquiries and reports used to document Savile’s offending — for example, the 2016 review found he sexually abused 72 people and raped eight, including a child [1]. Available sources do not describe any precedent or statutory mechanism in routine CPS practice for pardoning deceased individuals, and reporting instead focuses on investigations and inquiries rather than posthumous clemency [1] [3].
2. Domestic legal implications: prosecutions, records and accountability
A pardon could have complicated civil and criminal avenues for survivors seeking redress by altering perceptions of official judgment, even if it did not delete documentary evidence from inquiries [1]. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) record-keeping around the 2009 decision not to charge Savile has been a point of contention — Full Fact reported that the CPS said records of the decision were not kept, per data-retention rules [4]. That gap in records would have intensified scrutiny over any executive move to pardon, prompting demands for transparency about what was known by prosecutors and why charges were not brought [4].
3. Political and accountability fallout: who would be blamed?
A pardon would feed partisan disputes about responsibility for the failure to prosecute Savile in 2009. Reporting repeatedly shows political attacks alleging involvement by Keir Starmer when he led the CPS, while fact-checkers (BBC, Reuters, Full Fact) and later reporting noted there is no evidence he personally made or was told of that decision and that he was not the reviewing lawyer [5] [6] [4]. A pardon could have amplified false or misleading claims and provoked further inquiries into the CPS chain of command and the role of politicians who publicly criticised or defended prosecutorial choices [7] [8].
4. Survivors’ perspective and civil-law consequences
Survivors would likely have viewed a pardon as an institutional betrayal; press and advocacy reporting emphasize the devastation survivors felt and the systemic failures at organisations like the BBC and in policing that allowed Savile’s abuse to continue undetected for decades [2] [3]. Even if a pardon did not legally block civil claims for damages, it could have chilled settlement negotiations or coloured judicial and public sympathy, increasing calls for fresh inquiries into how institutions handled allegations [2].
5. Diplomatic and reputational costs abroad
The UK’s global reputation for rule of law and child-protection standards would have been at stake. International reporting and commentary after the Savile revelations focused on institutional failure (media, hospitals, police) and the UK government and public bodies were urged to show reform and accountability [2] [3]. A politically motivated pardon might have been perceived internationally as downplaying or whitewashing sexual offences committed by a well-known national figure, prompting criticism from foreign governments, human-rights NGOs and media — available sources do not record a real-world example of such a pardon for Savile, but they do document the international attention to the scandal and institutional reforms recommended [2] [3].
6. Information gaps and why reporting matters
Key factual gaps would have driven controversy: the CPS’s statement that records relating to the 2009 decision were not retained [4] and continued disputes over who knew what inside the CPS and when [9] [10]. These gaps mean that much debate would have turned on competing narratives — survivors’ accounts and inquiry findings versus legal technicalities about prosecutorial discretion — and on media fact-checks that later rebutted false claims about individual culpability [5] [6].
7. Competing viewpoints and political uses
Some political actors might have defended a pardon as closure or a technical correction; others would have said it would be a cover-up undermining victims and institutional reform. In public disputes after 2019–2022, fact-checkers (BBC, Reuters, Full Fact) repeatedly refuted simplified claims that a given official “failed to prosecute” Savile, and those same fact-checks would have been central to rebutting or supporting arguments over any pardon [5] [6] [4].
Conclusion: Any real proposal to pardon Jimmy Savile in 2016–2020 would have sparked legal confusion, intensified demands for CPS transparency (given admitted record gaps), deepened survivors’ anger, and posed diplomatic and reputational risks — debates that, in available reporting, consistently turned on documented inquiry findings and on careful fact-checking of political claims rather than on any established legal basis for posthumous pardon [1] [4] [2].