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Jimmy Savile’s death in 2011, and subsequent unmasking as a sexually violent perpetrator, led to collective trauma and much social reflection in the UK. This article, drawing on public archival sources such as press reportage, broadcast media, cultural pieces, and political debate, overlays the Savile case onto a historically contiguous period of shifting child sexual abuse perpetration narratives. This runs broadly from 1964, when Savile first appeared on the BBC show Top of the Pops, until 2012. It argues that contrary to many 2010s public appraisals which suggested lacunas in the historical record, sexual violence was represented heavily, often via allusion and euphemism. This historical framework also reveals an ‘exceptionalist’ representational metanarrative, disproportionately foregrounding sensational, stranger-led, dehumanised depictions of perpetrators at the expense – albeit not total – of more common paradigms in familial and domestic spheres. Over time, this created inexact understandings of perpetrators which worsened the experiences of survivors. The Savile case represents a window into these features, given thematic and temporal overlaps, and urges us to deconstruct this metanarrative. Methodologically, academic and public discourses might also draw on the episode in order to think more usefully about perpetration through the lenses of historical method, proportionality and reflexivity.

Savile’s shadow: exceptionalism and shifting historical perpetration narratives, 1964–2012