“At the heart of this are people and their families,” the BBC director general, Tim Davie, said on Wednesday about the presenter who had just been named over allegations of paying for sexually explicit photographs, and more.
If that point has at times been obscured this week, amid the coverage of a complex and disputed story that has dominated the British news agenda, the sobering events of the past few days have brought it sharply back into focus.
Huw Edwards, named by his wife as the BBC presenter at the centre of the scandal, is in hospital after suffering a serious mental health crisis; he is expected to stay there for some time. His cleancut reputation as the dignified, dependable voice of the BBC is in tatters. His career may be, too.
A week after the Sun first published serious allegations about a then unnamed BBC presenter, the full facts of this case remain difficult to unpick. Edwards will have questions to answer when he is well enough, with a number of additional claims about his behaviour towards colleagues and other people having emerged alongside the original reports.
He is far from the only person under scrutiny, however. The BBC, which is conducting its own investigation into Edwards’s conduct, has faced criticism over its response to the initial complaints. For the Sun, meanwhile, serious questions have arisen over its reporting of the story that kicked off the scandal in the first place.
Some have taken the opportunity to argue the BBC “needs to get its house in order”. Others ask if this should mark a watershed – another one – for tabloid behaviour and ethics. What Edwards has to say about the specific accusations against him is unknown, however; he is yet to offer any response.
Fevered speculation
It was last Friday evening when allegations against the presenter first emerged on the Sun’s website, followed by a front page the next day that read: “Top BBC star in sex pics probe.”
The story contained extremely serious allegations based on an interview with a concerned mother. She claimed her child had been sending sexually explicit photographs to an unnamed TV star in exchange for “huge sums” totalling £35,000 that the young person used to feed a crack cocaine addiction. Though her child was now 20, the “sleazy messages” had begun when they were 17, she told the paper. The family had contacted the BBC on 19 May, the story said, “and begged them to make the man ‘stop sending the cash’”.
There was no comment from the presenter, who the Sun said had been taken off air, or from the young person themselves; just a statement from the BBC saying it took “any allegations very seriously” and that its procedures included “actively attempting to speak to those who have contacted us in order to seek further detail”.
The Sun has backtracked somewhat in recent days, saying the initial story had not explicitly alleged criminality. But subsequent articles were unambiguous: the star “is accused of paying a child for sexual photos”, it said on Sunday, adding that “causing or inciting sexual exploitation of a child” carried a penalty of up to 14 years in prison.
There were further quotes from the concerned mother, who said: “We never wanted an investigation. We just wanted the BBC to tell him to stop.”
On Saturday, amid a blizzard of often highly libellous social media speculation, other BBC faces including Rylan Clark, Gary Lineker and Jeremy Vine rushed to say they were not the person concerned. Nicky Campbell suggested he had contacted police about false allegations.
By Sunday morning, politicians were weighing in, with Davie summoned for “urgent” talks with the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, while the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, called the allegations “deeply concerning”. The Metropolitan police said they would meet with the BBC on Monday. Davie, already no stranger to controversy in his brief tenure as director general, found himself again facing questions over whether he could remain in his post.
On Monday, however, the galloping story took a dramatic and unexpected turn, when a lawyer for the young person at the centre of the Sun’s allegations issued a statement disputing the account of their mother. “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality,” the statement said, adding: “The allegations reported in the Sun newspaper are rubbish.”
The lawyer said they had provided a similar denial to the Sun before the first story was published; no such rebuttal was included in the original article. The newspaper, in response, tried to steer attention back to the BBC, saying its original story was about a parental complaint that went unaddressed.
In the context of that denial, and of a fuller BBC timeline of its contact with the concerned family, the story looked rather different. The BBC received many hundreds of serious allegations every year, Davie told reporters, all of which it attempted to verify before approaching the individual concerned.
He said the concerned family, who first made a complaint on 19 May, made “different” initial accusations to those outlined in the Sun. They had not answered a follow-up email asking for more information, while an attempt to phone them more than two weeks later had not connected, he added. Whether that showed sufficient effort on the part of the BBC’s investigators was the subject of an internal review, Davie said, but he did not accept that the allegations had not been taken seriously.
Further claims, however, continued to emerge, some of them first reported by the BBC itself. One young person said they had felt threatened by Edwards – still unnamed at this point – who they said had contacted them on a dating app and, when they hinted they might name him publicly, had allegedly sent them “abusive, expletive-filled messages”. The Sun reported claims from a third person that the TV personality had broken Covid lockdown rules to visit them, and allegedly sent cash and asked for a picture. A fourth young person said Edwards had contacted them when they were 17 and sent “creepy” messages that included heart emojis.
By Wednesday, with Edwards’s name circulating widely on social media, his wife, Vicky Flind, a senior TV journalist, chose to speak out, saying she was naming him “out of concern for his mental wellbeing and to protect our children”, of which they have five.
Corporation takes the lead
The Metropolitan police and south Wales police have said they have seen no evidence of any crime being committed, turning the spotlight forcefully back on to the Sun. Perhaps mindful of public opinion, it has said it “has no plans to publish further allegations” about Edwards and will hand over evidence it has gathered about “serious and wide-ranging allegations … including some from BBC personnel” to the broadcaster’s internal investigation.
There are questions over whether the newspaper could face legal action from Edwards over claims of paying a minor for sexual photos, or “the mother of all libel actions”, as one tweet put it, which was later liked by Edwards’s own Twitter account. But there has been some doubt cast over whether the presenter would have a strong claim around his identification.
Yet the claims have not stopped – and the organisation leading the reporting is the BBC itself. The Newsnight presenter Victoria Derbyshire and others had been looking into separate claims against Edwards before the first Sun story appeared. The BBC programme reported on Wednesday that it had spoken to three current or former BBC staffers who said they had been sent flirtatious messages on social media by Edwards. “Sadly from my point of view, he has been sending suggestive messages to me,” one told the programme. “They were inappropriate. There is a power dynamic that makes them inappropriate.”
This is clearly less serious than a potential criminal allegation of soliciting child sexual abuse material, and some have argued that as that has been debunked by police, there is not much else to the story. “We now know there was no illegality. So what are you left with? Someone’s private life has come under scrutiny, who is now unwell,” said the former BBC presenter Jon Sopel, now with the News Agents on Global Player, who is a friend of Edwards.
“I think it would be a crying shame if this is the last we see of Huw Edwards on television when the allegations have turned out to be not that much,” he added.
Others, however, point out that as one of the most prominent and highest paid journalists for a publicly funded broadcaster, Edwards holds a position of immense influence; he is not the first powerful figure to face scrutiny over behaviour that is alleged to abuse that power. Clearly this is an incredibly difficult time for him and his family, but he is not the only vulnerable person in this story.
The Sun may have stood down for now, but any hopes the scandal might fade while Edwards recovers were dashed with the news that the family of the original young person have recorded an interview with TalkTV, the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper’s sister channel, as part of a reported three-part documentary series.
