Scotland Yard said it would carry out fresh inquiries into claims a prominent BBC presenter paid £35,000 for explicit images from a teenager as officers consider whether a full criminal investigation should be launched.
Detectives from the Metropolitan police’s specialist crime command had a virtual meeting with BBC representatives on Monday morning to discuss the allegations, Scotland Yard said.
BBC officials are understood to have passed information to the police, with corporation bosses having suspended the presenter from appearing on screen after claims he spent £35,000 over three years buying explicit images from a young person.
The Met does not consider the threshold for a criminal investigation has yet been reached, but in a statement made it clear the force would carry out further work, but falling short of a formal criminal investigation that would give officers powers of arrest and search.
A police spokesperson said: “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.”
The statement suggests the police are still at the “scoping” stage of the inquiry, where they do not commit to a particular course of action, but it leaves open the option of launching a full investigation.
Detectives are trying to work out what, if any, criminal offence may have been committed by the suspended presenter. The young person was allegedly 17 years old when they began talking to the BBC employee, later exchanging explicit pictures and video calls.
If the young person sent any explicit pictures when they were 17 then this could count as images of child sexual abuse, a serious criminal offence. But if the explicit photos were exchanged only after the young person turned 18 then it is possible that no law was broken. The age at which individuals can share explicit photographs is higher than the age at which they can legally have sex.
Police have also been checking whether the family at the centre of the allegations had lodged a complaint with the Met or any other force in Britain.
The Guardian understands a detective chief inspector was overseeing the police’s initial involvement at the weekend as the row intensified. The police would want any complainant to cooperate with any investigation and may ask the BBC to put them in contact with the teenager’s mother, who made an initial complaint and later took the story to the Sun newspaper. The police would also ask the corporation to hand over any material that could be evidence of criminal behaviour.
It is not clear whether the young person is cooperating with any of the inquiries. Almost everything that has been made public about the case comes from the individual’s mother, who talked anonymously to the Sun.
The Met has a special inquiry team handling the case, known as the celebrity squad – thanks to its experience dealing with high-profile and sensitive investigations. It is the same team who dealt with the Partygate scandal and made the decisions on which prominent politicians should be referred for fines for lockdown breaches while in Downing Street.
Specialists in sexual offences could be asked to assist or lead any investigation, if the police decide one is merited, given the nature of the allegations.
The BBC’s internal investigation is being led by Jeff Brown, a former police officer employed by the broadcaster to handle internal complaints. His professional profile says he specialises in “complex allegations of current and historic sexual assault/serious criminal wrongdoing”.
Media outlets have not named the BBC presenter. There is not believed to be any court order or injunction banning publication of the individual’s name. Instead, the legal risk of linking a prominent person to serious allegations has stopped mainstream news outlets from putting the name in the public domain.
The justice secretary, Alex Chalk, urged the broadcaster to “get on with” its part in any investigation. He told Sky News the public would “expect allegations of that nature to be dealt with very robustly and promptly” and “it may be that, in the fullness of time, there will need to be an investigation about how this allegation was handled”.
The BBC director general, Tim Davie, has said a set of allegations was made in May, followed by further claims “of a different nature” last Thursday. The presenter remained on air until last week, when journalists at the Sun approached the BBC for comment.
On Monday, the paper reported that the presenter had called the young person after the first press reports appeared, asking: “What have you done?” The paper claimed he asked them to call their mother to get her to “stop the investigation”.
