If a person is aware of a crime being comitted against a vulnerable person and doesn't speak up, is that person as bad as the criminal (more details inside)

The Brits among us will know about the hundreds of claims currently being reported against Sir Jimmy Saville who, for the sake of those who don’t know, was a popular TV personality here in the UK up until his death last year at 84 years old.

Now, a year after his death, a very large number of people are claiming that he sexually abused and even raped them when they were teenagers. What is bothering me the most about this case is that, many people (staff at the BBC, hospital staff at the hospitals he used to fund raise for, his body guard and fellow celebrities of the day) are now coming forward to say that they actually witnessed some of these acts against young girls but none of them reported it to the police. Some say that they did report it to the BBC chiefs but it was “brushed under the carpet as an open secret” but so far, it appears that no one actually went to the police which, in my mind, would be the obvious thing to do.

In my opinion,if these claims are all true, the people that witnessed them but didn’t speak up aided the abuse of these children because, if they had gone to the police, it may have stopped him from abusing the next child.

What are your thoughts on people who keep quiet on something terrible they have witnessed with their own eyes?

Feel free to answer this question based on the Jimmy Saville case but keep in mind that it could be about any crime that someone witnesses but doesn’t report