Collective professed ignorance allowed an abuser to operate openly for decades.

Evidence

Savile exploited his celebrity, philanthropy, and social connections in high circles, as documented earlier, to enable his sexual abuses to go unchecked for over four decades under a succession of BBC presidents. They all professed unawareness of his unlawful conduct, even though it was widely known among their colleagues. Despite the seriousness of the harm inflicted on vulnerable children, widespread suspicion and rumors of sexual misconduct and hundreds of charges filed with police department, BBC officials made no serious efforts to investigate Savile’s behavior. Commander Peter Spindler of Scotland Yard summarized the tragic state of affairs: “He was hiding in plain sight, and none of us was able to do anything about it” (Burns & Cowell, 2013). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 572

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to mechanisms by which harmful conduct endures under collective willful blindness.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 572