The Metropolitan police have asked the BBC to pause its inquiries into a suspended male presenter, while specialist officers decide if there is any justification for a criminal investigation.
The BBC director general, Tim Davie, said the Met had taken control of the inquiry, although the police were still at the “scoping” stage of their inquiries and they may decide they was no criminal case to answer.
Davie made the announcement as he took questions from journalists at the launch of the BBC’s annual report. The off-camera event was scheduled long before one of the broadcaster’s leading male presenters was suspended following allegations in the Sun he spent £35,000 buying explicit images from a young person.
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The BBC published its own timeline of events leading up to the presenter’s suspension, which claimed a member of the young person’s family initially tried to make a complaint via a physical BBC office in May – and later failed to return phone calls from BBC investigators.
Davie said the initial complaint was “very serious but not criminal”, unlike the claims put to the BBC by the Sun last week that the young person may have been 17 when contact began.
The director general confirmed the presenter was informed of the allegations against him only last week, when the Sun contacted the BBC.
The director general said the BBC had a “duty of care” to the suspended presenter, suggested they were providing him with support, and declined to comment on suggestions that blackmail may have been involved.
The young person at the heart of the story has said the Sun’s claims of illegal behaviour are “rubbish”.
The BBC published its annual list of its highest-earning stars.
Davie said the young person’s family initially attempted to complain about the presenter by walking into a local BBC office in May. They then called the BBC’s complaints line – usually used by members of the public unhappy with what they have watched on screen.
He said this was then passed to the BBC’s internal investigations team, which concluded it was worth pursuing. “On the basis of the information they had at that point, it did not involve an allegation of criminality but it was nonetheless very serious,” said Davie.
The investigations team twice attempted to contact the individual who had made complaint but received no response, he said, prompting it to pause the investigation. Davie insisted it was standard procedure for the BBC’s investigations team to verify serious allegations before putting them to presenters.
He said 250 cases had been referred by the internal investigations team in the last six months, and the BBC had to protect its staff from malicious claims, adding: “You could be in a situation where anyone could ring anything in and put it to presenters.”
The young person’s mother later took the allegations to the Sun, claiming payments from the BBC presenter helped fund her child’s crack cocaine habit. She alleged her child was 17 years old when they started talking online with the BBC employee.
The young person, now 20, has issued a statement distancing themselves from their mother and said the key allegations were “rubbish”.
The young person’s lawyer said: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality and the allegations reported in the Sun newspaper are rubbish.”
The lawyer also suggested they told the Sun the story was wrong but the newspaper did not include the denial in its reporting.
Davie said the BBC had been conducting its inquiries with “utmost diligence” while “sensibly handling duty of care issues”, including protecting the privacy of all the individuals involved. He also confirmed the BBC would hand over to the police any material it held on the suspended presenter, while reviewing its protocols and procedures for reporting allegations.
If the young person sent the BBC presenter any explicit photos when they were 17, it is possible a serious criminal offence involving child sexual abuse was committed. But if the young person waited until they were 18 to send any explicit pictures, they would have legally been an adult and it is substantially less likely that a criminal offence was committed.
The BBC presenter has not been named in the mainstream media, partly due to the increasingly strong privacy laws in England and Wales. Davie said he had not talked to the presenter and would not comment on whether they had offered to resign. Davie added: “Duty of care is a very significant factor in this if you look at the enormity of the coverage... That goes beyond the people at the centre of the drama but also the people affected by that.”
The young person’s lawyer told BBC News they had provided a similar denial to the Sun before the publication of the original story, telling the tabloid there was no truth to the article they were preparing to publish. The tabloid pressed ahead, without including any denial from the young person.
A spokesperson for the Sun said: “We have reported a story about two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child. Their complaint was not acted upon by the BBC. We have seen evidence that supports their concerns. It’s now for the BBC to properly investigate.”
The BBC’s annual report also revealed the salaries of many of the BBC’s leading presenters, while also showing how the broadcaster is struggling to connect with youth audiences and facing a drop in the number of British households paying the licence fee.
Davie defended the continuing need for the corporation in the face of challenges, saying: “Despite all the storms and challenges, the need for a strong and thriving BBC is greater than ever. In a world of polarisation, surely we are fighting for something very important.”
