Pressure is mounting on the BBC to answer allegations that its Newsnight documentary team were forced to drop an investigation into Jimmy Savile’s long-standing sexual abuse of minors. ITN reports today (October 12, 2012) that the current director-general, George Entwhistle, has asked his colleague Ken MacQuarrie, the director of BBC Scotland to speak to Newsnight journalists and explain why their film was not aired. MacQuarrie was selected to speak to the team after several of them wrote to Entwhistle, as he is a senior member of management at the BBC.

This latest news heaps added pressure on the BBC. The organisation recently announced that they would be launching their own investigation into the scandal, once they had the green light from the Metropolitan police, to ensure that the official police investigations into the matter were not compromised by their own probes.

In Leeds, where Savile lived for much of his life, many organisations and companies have been quietly removing the tributes that had been put in place in his honour, as locals struggle to reconcile the image of Savile as a much-loved TV presenter and tireless charity campaigner, with the sordid details of his life that have only now reached the public domain, months after his death. The Royal Armouries, a tourist attraction in Leeds are one of the latest to remove their tribute to him: Savile Hall, one of their larger function rooms will now be re-named “out of respect for public opinion,” The Mirror reports.