The BBC is embroiled in yet another pedophilia scandal as it emerges the broadcaster used convicted pedophiles as chauffeurs for elite VIPs including world leaders and celebrities.
These drivers were given BBC passes, access to the production studios, and allegedly participated in child sexual abuse at the BBC’s Television Centre in West London.
The chauffeur service in question, Niven Cars, was used by the BBC from the 1970s to 2006 and was headed by Niven Sinclair, a man with child sex convictions that included raping a child at gunpoint.
Sinclair employed drivers who also had convictions for child sex crimes and he was paid millions by the BBC as his firm transported celebrities – including Jimmy Saville and high-profile guests such as then-Prime Minister Ted Heath – to and from the corporation’s studios.
Niven was jailed for six months in June 1961 for indecent assaults on two underage boys.
In 1966, he was sentenced to five years in prison for buggery and indecent assault on one boy and a second indecent assault on a 12-year-old.
In 1971, he was again convicted of buggery and sexual assault of four boys aged 13 and 14.
Sinclair groomed boys by paying them for odd jobs, offering them wine before forcing himself on them at his flat in Stanmore, North West London.
However, the BBC issued glowing praise for Sinclair as being a ‘wily and determined’ man who even had a role in the success of BBC current affairs productions.
According to the BBC, Sinclair ‘built a reputation for digging programmes out of holes’.
Also known as Niven Cars, his business had 150 cars being driven for the BBC at one stage, The Telegraph reported.
One of Niven’s pedophile drivers – David Smith – went on to abuse at least two children at BBC studios.
Daily Mail report: The newspaper spoke to one of Smith’s victims and revealed he is considering suing the under-fire broadcaster in the latest of scandals to batter the BBC.
Both Sinclair and Smith had BBC passes and the cars used to drive the celebrities used number plates referring to the corporation.
Smith began working as a chauffeur for the broadcaster in the early 1980s – and he had already racked up five convictions for abusing children.
It is understood that he was convicted in 1989 of abusing another child, and reportedly remained working for the firm until the early 90s.
Shockingly, Dame Janet Smith’s investigation following the Jimmy Savile scandal failed to identify either of the men.
One of Smith’s victims told The Telegraph he was sexually abused between the ages of 12 and 14 and believes the BBC should be ‘held to account’ for a lack of vetting.
Smith pleaded guilty to abusing him in 2001, and the victim said one of the allegations regarded an incident at the BBC’s Television Centre in West London.
He was convicted of abusing another child in 2001 who went on to kill himself in 2015.
It is understood he told his family he had been abused at the BBC’s studios.
The victim ‘hope[s] to understand is whether or not the BBC have been negligent in the way that they have dealt with child sexual abuse and particularly, surrounding Niven Sinclair and Niven Cars and people that worked for him’, he told the newspaper.
Smith accumulated 22 convictions for child abuse at the time of his death in 2013, on the eve of another sexual abuse trial.
Court documents at the time revealed he ‘was contracted to work as a driver for the BBC’.
