Shropshire Jimmy Savile victim glad to be believed at last
A woman from Shropshire who claims she was abused by Jimmy Savile has told a television documentary that she is relieved she 'is finally being believed'.
Karin Ward, 54, who is from St Martins, near Oswestry, made the comments during a Panorama investigation which was broadcast on BBC1 last night.'
She was one of three people to be interviewed for the programme which was investigating how much the BBC knew about what Savile was doing.
The mother-of-four had previously been interviewed for a Newsnight investigation into claims that Savile was a paedophile last November.
During the Panorama programme Miss Ward spoke about how she felt when the Newsnight programme was dropped in favour of televised tributes to the former BBC Radio DJ after his death last October.
She said: "To me it just meant that yet again I hadn't been believed.
"But I'd spent my whole life not being believed.
"It was hurtful and tough because I had been pushed so hard to do it when I didn't want to, and I wasn't very well. I had cancer.
"In the end I said 'okay'."
Newsnight reporter Liz MacKeen told the programme that she and other people working directly on the report hadn't found any reason to doubt Miss Ward's story.
"We found Karin very credible but that on its own wasn't going to make this," she said.
"Then we found other women who were willing to give us quotes.
"They were all telling the same story,."
Since Miss Ward's interview with Newsnight, an ITV investigation into Savile was broadcast, sparking dozens more people to come forward with their allegations.
Miss Ward told the programme that while she was now finding that her story was being believed, she was still finding it difficult to deal with.
"At the moment it's not so good because I don't really know how to cope with it.
"But one day I will and then it will be good," she told the documentary.
