A REPORT into the way Jimmy Savile’s victims were treated when they told of their abuse, reveals they were ignored, felt unable to speak out and suffered trauma into adulthood.

Victims, including three women in Lancashire, were reported to the Operation Yewtree inquiry and according to NSPCC research, victims were often laughed at by staff at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, in Buckinghamshire.

Commissioned by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and conducted by the NSPCC, the report highlights the devastating scars the abuse has left, with some turning to drink and drugs to cope. Others have suffered mental illness, poor relationships or contemplated suicide.

Blackburn MP Jack Straw said that more should have been done in the 1980s.

He said: “It is appaling that these victims’ allegations were not taken seriously at the time and I am afraid that it was just a fraction of prevailing attitudes back then, about sexual offences by men with power, against young women.”

Nazir Afzal, head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the North West said that he will continue to bring cases regardless of ‘who makes the complaint or who the complaint is against’.

He recently hit back at critics who accuse him of mounting a ‘witch-hunt’ against celebrities.