Millionaire Jimmy Savile was given a council flat after his “ramshackle” property in Salford was demolished, a rape trial heard today.
Savile told a journalist that he was “entitled” to the move because the council had decided to knock it down.
Alan Leek, a junior reporter at the now-defunct Manchester Comet newspaper between 1965 and 1966, gave evidence at the trial of former DJ Ray Teret who is accused of a string of historical sexual offences against young girls from the 1960s to the 1990s.
He told the jury he wrote a number of articles on Savile and had met him for the first time at the Top Ten Club in Belle Vue while he was still at school because he knew a bouncer who worked there.
Mr Leek said he only “knew of” Teret at the time.
He recalled writing an article about Savile’s house move.
He said: “It was the flat that Savile lived in, in a rambling, ramshackle house in Broughton, and it was due for demolition. He was given a brand new council flat in Bury New Road.”
Prosecutor Tim Evans asked: “Why a story?”
Mr Leek replied: “The fact that a millionaire was being given a council house. I interviewed Savile from recollection and I went to his home to talk about it.”
He said he went to the flat in Great Clowes Street, Higher Broughton.
Mr Leek said: “It was very dark, was the overall impression I got. Dark and tatty.”
In a statement to police, he said he thought the walls had even been painted black.
He told the court: “There may have even been scribbling on some of the walls, I don’t know.”
The witness recalled that Savile had four cars – two Rolls-Royces, a three-wheel Isetta bubble car and an E-type Jaguar.
He said Savile’s home was “semi-derelict” and that was why the council was knocking it down.
Mr Leek said: “He (Savile) said ’I’m entitled to a flat, I need a base to work from in Manchester’.”