An official report released in Britain says the late TV presenter Jimmy Savile sexually assaulted hundreds of people over six decades.
The joint report by the Metropolitan Police and children's anti-cruelty charity NSPCC details offences carried out at the BBC and at 13 hospitals where he did voluntary work, Reuters reports.
The report found he had committed 214 criminal offences including 34 rapes or serious sexual assaults across the country.
Of his alleged victims, three quarters were under 18, most were female and and the youngest was an eight-year-old boy.
Commander Peter Spindler, who led the police investigation, said Savile's offending footprint was "vast, predatory and opportunistic".
He said the presenter used his celebrity status to win people's trust and to groom the nation.
"This sordid affair shows the tragic consequences of what happens when vulnerability collides with power".
Savile, one of the BBC's biggest stars of the 1970s and 80s, received a knighthood for his charity work. He died in 2011.
Although a few allegations had been made when he was alive, these were never pursued and both police and prosecutors said lessons had to be learned to ensure there could be no repeat.
"We will learn the lessons and will make sure victims in the future have a voice," Commander Spindler said.
NSPCC director of child protection advice and awareness Peter Watt said Savile had "cunningly" built his life's work around getting access to children to abuse.
"He hid in plain sight, behind a veil of eccentricity double-bluffing those who challenged him, from vulnerable children right up to and including a prime minister of the time," said Mr Watt.
Savile abused 33 people at the BBC from 1965, including a girl in 2006 at the last recording of popular weekly show Top of the Pops, one of the programmes which had made him famous.
He targeted people at hospitals over 30 years from 1965, including at the renowned Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London. Other attacks took place at schools where children had written to him as part of his Jim'll Fix It show.
