London: The BBC is being asked to explain why it continued to pay its former top news presenter Huw Edwards more than £200,000 ($393,000) following his arrest for possessing indecent images of children.
Edwards pleaded guilty at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in central London during a 26-minute hearing to the charges relating to images shared on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021. The Metropolitan Police said earlier this week that he was arrested in November last year and charged on June 26.
Huw Edwards arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.Credit: Getty Images
London’s Telegraph reported that the BBC knew about Edwards’s arrest last November and continued to pay him his full salary until he resigned voluntarily 5½ months later.
British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy will now meet BBC director-general Tim Davie over the broadcaster’s handling of the Edwards case. Katie Razzall, the BBC’s culture and media editor, said there were “serious questions for the BBC and its director-general”.
The images that were sent included seven of what are known as “category A”, which are the most indecent. Of those, the estimated age of most of the children was between 13 and 15, but one was aged between 7 and 9, the court was told.
The court also heard that an unnamed male asked Edwards on February 2, 2021 whether what he was sending was too young. Edwards told him not to send any underage images. Five more, though, were sent, and the exchange of pornographic images continued until April 2022.
Speaking in Edwards’ defence, his lawyer Philip Evans, KC, said there is “no suggestion” that his client had “in the traditional sense of the word, created any image of any sort”.
Edwards, he added, “did not keep any images, did not send any to anyone else and did not and has not sought similar images from anywhere else”.
Edwards was one of the BBC’s most prominent figures, as well as one of its highest-paid before he was suspended in July 2023 for separate claims made last year. He later resigned for health reasons.
His lawyer told the court that Edwards had “both mental and physical” health issues, and that he was “not just of good character, but of exceptional character”.
In a four-decade career at the BBC, Edwards had become one of its trusted voices. He was the lead anchor on the BBC’s nightly news and led BBC coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022.
AP
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