Jimmy Savile told hospital staff he interfered with patients’ corpses, taking grotesque photographs and stealing glass eyes for jewellery, over two decades at the mortuary of Leeds general infirmary.
The late Top of the Pops presenter had free access to the mortuary from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, an official investigation has found, concluding that Savile’s interest in the deceased was “not within accepted boundaries”.
One former Broadmoor nurse told investigators that Savile claimed to have performed sex acts on bodies and “mucked about” in the mortuary, posing in photographs with the deceased after placing them in lewd positions.
The former nurse said: “He [Savile] was saying that they used to put the bodies together, male and female, and he also said that they took photographs and also that he got involved in some of the photographs … I was a little bit upset because I had no concept, in those days, of necrophilia. Several of the Broadmoor patients would have been diagnosed with that, but I didn’t fully understand what it meant, and partway through I just wandered off.
“[Savile] talked about gamaroosh … It means oral sex … that he [Savile], he would go down on them and gamaroosh and muck about.”
Separately, the independent investigation was told that Savile had removed glass eyes from the bodies and used them as jewellery.
One witness said: “I looked at his hands and he had these gross, big silver rings with bulbous things and I sort of went, ‘Yes, mm,’ always be polite to your superstar, ‘Yes, Jim.’ And he said: ‘D’you know what they are? They are glass eyes from dead bodies in Leeds mortuary where I work and I love working there, and I wheel the dead bodies around at night and I love that.'”
Savile was said to have been best friends with the chief mortician of Leeds general infirmary, who is now dead, and had regular unsupervised access to the mortuary from the late 70s until the mid-90s.
The investigation, published by the Department of Health, established that Savile had publicly disclosed his interest in the dead, that he was friends with the chief mortician, and that there was a lack of stringent procedures regarding access to the mortuary until the late 80s at the earliest.
It concluded: “In light of the claims about the glass eye jewellery and Savile’s interference with the bodies of the deceased, it is evident his interest in the mortuary was not within accepted boundaries.”
A Home Office pathologist confirmed to the inquiry that it would have been possible for Savile to pose with the bodies before the rigor mortis stage, a chemical change which causes a corpse’s limbs to become stiff.
Dr. Jennifer Bolton told the investigators: “A degree of posing would be possible with some support of the body in the pre-rigor mortis phase and by the simple laying of one body on top of another once rigor mortis was fully established.
“It would be possible to manipulate the body to some extent alone by exploiting the effects of rigor mortis but it would be more easily attained if more than one individual was involved.”
