AWARD-WINNING journalist Liz MacKean died on Friday at the premature age of 52.
Her death perhaps has not received quite as much publicity as it would otherwise have done as entertainer supreme Bruce Forsyth passed away on the same day.
But there was another reason too.
For Liz, best-known to the general public for her work on the Newsnight programme from 2000 to 2011, became persona non-grata at the Beeb following her controversial departure.
Liz was the reporter working on allegations that BBC legend and charity hero Jimmy Savile was infact an appalling paedophile.
The programme launched an investigation into Savile immediately after his death on October 29 2011.
Liz and her producer Meirion Jones were very confident they had nailed the story.
Yet not only did it not appear on air before that Christmas, the Beeb astonishingly broadcast a series of tributes to Savile.
Talk about the right hand not knowing what the left was doing?
MacKean alleged her editor Peter Rippon tried to ‘kill’ the Savile story.
She took voluntary redundancy whilst Jones was sacked.
Even after ITV’s Exposure programme emphatically revealed the truth about the eccentric former disc jockey a year later, the smear campaign against MacKean continued.
She was accused by the BBC of having produced ‘shoddy journalism’ as they tried unconvincingly to defend their decision not to expose one of their own.
Just how unconvincing was publicly exposed by the subsequent Pollard Inquiry.
Former Sky News executive Nick Pollard reported on December 19 2012: “Newsnight investigators were right. They found clear and compelling evidence that Jimmy Savile was a paedophile. The decision by their editor to drop the original investigation was clearly flawed and the way they took it was wrong.”
Nothing however – certainly not the red-faced BBC – could prevent MacKean from further getting her teeth into the story.
For celebrity paedophile Savile wasn’t alone.
In August 2013 MacKean was hired by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme for an investigation into another very popular late knight of the realm.
This time she got the backing of her bosses and the subsequent programme The Paedophile MP. How Cyril Smith got away with it cut through 50 years of silence over the disgraceful sexual abuse perpetrated by the former Rochdale MP.
MacKean was announced as Journalist of the Decade by Stonewall in 2015.
But now MacKean has passed away. Reports said she had suffered a stroke.
What the general public don’t know is that we are on the eve of more devastating revelations of VIP paedophilia.
And reportedly another ‘power struggle’, similar to the one that delayed the exposure of Savile by a full year, is currently taking place.
All I know about the content is that they centre on paedophile rings, rather than the activities of one or two well-known individuals.
Like the exposures of Savile and Smith, this is potentially perception-changing as ordinary folk gradually wake up to the fact that something very wrong is inherent in high society in this country.
I can’t directly link the passing of MacKean with what is now happening behind the scenes at this stage.
But it’s a disturbing co-incidence – that’s if you believe in co-incidences.
As I’ve already written about on this blog, Jill Dando, known to be aware of allegations about Savile and a VIP paedophile ring through her work with Crimewatch, suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a bullet.
The late and hugely lamented Princess Diana was murdered in a less obvious way before her ‘biggest secret that will shock the world’ got an airing.
MacKean may have died totally naturally. Perhaps the sheer weight of the burden she has carried these last few years was too much for her physical body.
But what I do know is this.
We owe a huge debt of thanks to his brilliant journalist for her role in breaking one of the most important stories in our lifetime.
And what has officially emerged so far is just the tip of a sordid iceberg.
Rest in peace Liz MacKean, a true champion of the people’s right to know the truth.