"He said to me, 'don't you dare tell anyone about this because no one will believe it, because I'm King Jimmy,' " Cook said.

The boy could hardly bear to watch the show when it aired a few months later, to the great excitement of his family. "I just hated the man," Cook said. "I blamed myself for 37 years. That's the worst thing: You do blame yourself."

Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the opposition Labour Party, sympathized with the plight of the victims. "Everyone has been sickened by the vile abuse perpetrated by Jimmy Savile, and it is impossible to overstate the suffering caused to those he abused," she said last week.

Scandal rocks the BBC

Veteran BBC world affairs correspondent John Simpson gave an idea of the sense of disarray within the company during an interview broadcast Monday.

"This is the worst crisis that I can remember in my nearly 50 years at the BBC. ... I don't think the BBC has handled it terribly well. All we have as an organization is the trust of people, the people that watch us and listen to us. ... If we start to lose that, that's very dangerous for the BBC."

The BBC, which has repeatedly expressed its horror over the abuse, is now embroiled in painful internal turmoil, with the two independent inquiries raking over e-mails and conversations for evidence of who knew what when.

One is focused on the culture and practices of the BBC, as well as the safeguards in place for members of the public and staff now and in the past, while the other is scrutinizing why its flagship current affairs program "Newsnight" dropped its investigation into Savile late last year.

On Monday, the BBC said the program's editor, Peter Rippon, was "stepping aside" amid the furor. It labeled an October 2 blog post by Rippon explaining his decision to drop the investigation "inaccurate or incomplete in some respects."

Hours later, another BBC program, "Panorama," broadcast its own probe into the "Newsnight" decision, suggesting that serious allegations had been made to "Newsnight" reporters before the investigation was shelved.

On Tuesday, Entwistle told lawmakers that having watched the program, he was "surprised that nothing further happened" in light of the material dug up by "Newsnight."

Meanwhile, the scandal continues to dominate conversation in homes, workplaces and pubs across the country as people seek to understand how a man widely seen as an eccentric hero could have duped the nation and done so much harm.

The debate is all the more uncomfortable as Savile appears to have used his access to children, through his charity and TV work, as a means to prey on vulnerable young people for decades -- and has gone to his grave unpunished.