A very British scandal: the BBC star, the sex photos, the junkie and the tabloid

Simon Meier

The mother is beside herself. “The BBC presenter” is said to have paid her child £35,000 over three years. £35,000 the boy invested in crack. A “cheerful, carefree youngster” has become a “ghostly crack junkie.” Bank statements showed multiple transfers between 2020 and today, the highest being £5,000. The man would have received sexually tinted photos of the child for the money.

On May 19, the parents contacted the BBC with the allegations. Their goal: the flow of money must finally stop, not money for drugs. The BBC responds, but responds calmly. Sends the parents an e-mail in which she writes that she takes the allegations seriously. Tried calling her once but gave up when she didn’t answer right away.

On July 6, “The Sun” newspaper informed the BBC and the ominous “speaker” that it would publish the parents’ revelations on July 7. what she does Panic breaks out. Several BBC spokespersons are then suspected, witch hunts and prejudice erupt on social media. Internally it soon becomes clear that there can only be one: Huw Edwards, 61, with an annual salary of £440,000, the fourth highest paid BBC star, news presenter and commentator on “significant events”.

His voice accompanied the audience through William and Kate’s wedding, Obama’s inauguration, Meghan and Harry’s wedding, Prince Philip’s funeral, Charles’ coronation. He announced the Queen’s death in a black suit and also attended her funeral. Huw Edwards, man of unparalleled authority, father of five, churchgoer with a doctorate in Church history, son of a teacher and a professor of Welsh literature. Millions trusted his information and his judgment.

On July 8, the “child”, who is now 20 and whose gender remains unknown, said through his lawyer that everything the parents had told The Sun was “nonsense”: “For the avoidance of doubt, there is nothing inappropriate or happened wrongfully between our client and the BBC personality and the allegations in the Sun newspaper are nonsense.”

On July 9, the police officer who once investigated BBC presenter Jimmy Saville for multiple child abuse demands that the BBC man, still unknown to the public, surrender. BBC critics sense a twilight of the gods.

It wasn’t until July 10 that the “Sun” commented on the alleged victim’s allegations and backed down. She never insinuated criminal activity, which in turn was allegedly insinuated by another newspaper from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire (which also includes The Sun), namely the Sunday Times. The “Sun” was completely innocent and cared only for concerned parents. The parents express their disappointment. They are sure that “the moderator” also funded their child’s lawyer.

On Wednesday 12 July, the police announced that they would not be conducting any further investigation. The alleged victim was not 17 at the start of the alleged photo trade, as the parents claimed, but 18, so that the trade would no longer be punishable.

Another follows a few minutes after the police statement. It was written by former BBC editor Vicky Flind, wife of Huw Edwards. The first reaction is: if Flind knocks out her husband, he must be REALLY guilty! But all she intends is to ask for silence and calm the waves of others’ suspicion and prejudice:

Chaos reigns at the BBC: the 6pm news reports the Edwards case as the biggest report, the two news anchors get mixed up several times reporting fake news that they have to correct seconds later, for example that Edwards has already been sacked, what he did is it not. Outside the BBC building, staff give interviews who angrily turn on Edwards. Others say he went to the clinic “angry” and feeling let down by the BBC.

A final judgment cannot be made at this time, the voice of the alleged victim in this case is the opposite of that of his parents, the case is closed to the police, Edwards has yet to respond. In the meantime, allegations have been made against him from three other sides, including within the BBC, so the BBC will eventually have to deal with the case. And also the “Sun” will have to answer a number of questions. For example, the ‘Guardian’ asked whether she had actually seen the bank statements of the alleged transfers or had just heard about them.

Edwards may have taken unfair advantage of a young junkie’s plight. Maybe the parents are right. It may be a campaign by Rupert Murdoch against the BBC. All that is certain is that Huw Edwards is a man whose voice in Britain’s collective memory is indelibly linked to the country’s greatest events. His case is A Very British Scandal.