The BBC have revealed they were asked to pause its investigation into allegations one of its presenters paid a teenager for explicit images "while the police scope future work" following a meeting with the Metropolitan Police, the corporation has said.
It was confirmed yesterday that the BBC and Metropolitan police met to discuss claims a presenter had paid a teen £35,000 for sexually explicit photos.
Now, in a press conference held today, the BBC confirmed they were asked by police to pause their internal investigation.
The BBC released a statement in conjunction with the meeting, along with a timeline of 'key dates'. It read: "Yesterday, 10 July, the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team had a meeting with the Metropolitan Police in relation to information provided to the BBC by The Sun newspaper on Thursday 6 July.
"As a result of this meeting, the BBC has been asked to pause its investigations into the allegations while the Police scope future work."
"We know that questions have been asked about how the complaint was initially managed, so today we have published an update that sets out key dates and some additional information that we are currently able to share.
"The BBC has processes and protocols for receiving information and managing complaints when they are first made. We always take these matters extremely seriously and seek to manage them with the appropriate duty of care.
"The events of recent days have shown how complex and challenging these kinds of cases can be and how vital it is that they are handled with the utmost diligence and care. There will, of course, be lessons to be learned following this exercise.
"Although the current issues has not yet been fully resolved, the Director-General has asked Leigh Tavaziva, the BBC’s Group Chief Operating Officer, to assess whether our protocols and procedures are appropriate in light of this case, and report to the BBC Board on this in due course."Following the meeting, the Met Police released a statement and confirmed they were undertaking further enquiries, but added there was no investigation under way."
A Met Police statement said: "Detectives from the Met's specialist crime command met with representatives from the BBC on the morning of Monday, 10 July. The meeting took place virtually.
"They are assessing the information discussed at the meeting and further enquiries are taking place to establish whether there is evidence of a criminal offence being committed. There is no investigation at this time."
In a press conference held today, director-general Tim Davie faced questions about the scandal.
Opening the conference, Acting chair Elan Closs Stephens told reporters: "The BBC is currently at the centre of a very significant news story. I know that you will all want to use this press conference to ask questions and it's right, absolutely right, that we take some time to brief you and to take questions. But I do want to remind everyone that this press conference is part of the BBC's accountability to its license fee payers for the whole of last year.
"Tim will speak more about our ongoing issue in a moment. But, before he does, I just want to say on behalf of the board that we all of this take extremely seriously and we want to ensure it is dealt with properly – that is our role."
