Rupert Murdoch’s News UK has offered tens of thousands of pounds to the parents who made allegations about Huw Edwards, in return for a television interview, according to sources at the media company.
The Guardian understands that an interview with the couple has been recorded and is being edited for broadcast on TalkTV, the sister station of the Sun. Sources said the parents have been offered a significant sum for this.
The parents claimed their 20-year-old child was taken advantage of by Edwards, 61, who they alleged paid the young person £35,000 in return for explicit pictures. The police have concluded Edwards has no criminal case to answer but an internal BBC inquiry is investigating the allegations and separate claims against the News at Ten host.
The Sun’s first story on the allegations, which prompted the BBC to suspend Edwards from his £435,000-a-year job, said the mother and stepfather in question had made “it clear they wanted no payment” in return for bringing the accusations to the tabloid.
An editorial in Monday’s print edition of the Sun emphasised that the issue was not about money for the family: “They did not seek any payment. They just wanted the payments harming their child to stop.”
Edwards’ wife, Vicky Flind, confirmed on Wednesday that he was the BBC presenter at the centre of the allegations, following five days of anonymous accusations. She said the presenter was in a hospital with mental health issues.
Since then the Sun has pledged to dial back its reporting and said it will not seek to break further stories on the topic.
A source at News UK said the Sun had not made any financial payment to the couple but confirmed that TalkTV was speaking to them as part of a planned three-part documentary series. The television channel has a reputation for paying large sums of money to secure interviews.
The parents, who have not been publicly identified, could not be reached for comment.
The Sun has rowed back on its initial suggestion that illegal underage activity could have taken place and insists its story was always about concerned parents. The 20-year-old at the heart of the story has dismissed their mother and stepfather’s suggestions of illegal behaviour as “rubbish”.
News of the potential TalkTV interviews comes as BBC News continues to investigate its own star presenter. Sources in the BBC newsroom claimed the Newsnight host Victoria Derbyshire had been “taking initial soundings” in relation to claims against Edwards in the days before the Sun released its original story.
On Wednesday night Derbyshire made the first allegations of potential wrongdoing in the workplace, with a story claiming Edwards had messaged three young BBC employees, including one who is still at the organisation. BBC News journalists are understood to be working on further potential stories on Edwards, even while the BBC’s corporate investigations conducts its own parallel inquiry.
The BBC had already published a separate story about Edwards – who was at that point still anonymous – allegedly sending abusive and threatening messages to a person he met on a dating app. The person, in their 20s, is said to have hinted they could post publicly about the presenter.
The corporation has also received some criticism from friends of Edwards over the coverage of its most prominent presenter. The former BBC journalist Jon Sopel, now a host of the News Agents podcast, said he had “been struck by how many of my former BBC colleagues, some very senior, have been in touch to express their anger and dismay at their own coverage of this”.
Sopel told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that he had been in touch with Edwards since the story broke and the suspended presenter was “not overly impressed” with the BBC’s coverage of the incident.
The focus of the story is now shifting to the BBC’s internal investigation. A spokesperson for the BBC said its official inquiry into Edwards would concentrate on “fact finding”, with the corporation also likely to consider separate allegations of potential workplace misconduct that are not of a criminal nature.
The BBC said the focus would be on ensuring due process and a thorough assessment of the facts while “continuing to be mindful of our duty of care to all involved”.
