Revealed: BBC bosses’ ‘unforgivable’ dealing with of Huw Edwards scandal

Huw Edwards has made a ‘mockery’ of the BBC and was aided by a small band of his bosses who kept his arrest secret for months, betrayed staffers said today.

The corporation faces yet more damaging questions after another of its biggest stars was revealed to be a sex offender after Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris and others.

‘It’s unforgivable and makes a mockery of the organisation. There will be lots of people who are very angry with Tim Davie‘, one BBC employee said today.

And BBC News Culture and Media Editor Katie Razzall said: ‘The facts are the BBC … continued paying Huw Edwards his vast salary for five months after he was arrested,’ adding: ‘Why, also, did they let him leave on his own terms?’.

‘In the end, this was a judgement call for the people at the very top of the BBC and the optics are reputationally damaging. The BBC spent taxpayers’ money on a man now guilty of serious offences. Many people will believe the corporation made the wrong judgement’, she said.

The Director General has been summoned to meet Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy today to explain the BBC’s role in the scandal, including who had knowledge of Edwards’ arrest eight months ago 

There are also reports that someone in the Met Police called BBC management to alert them that Edwards had been charged, before it was made public.

Nicky Campbell, one of the BBC’s most senior radio broadcasters, has branded his ex-colleague Edwards ‘disgusting’. And responding to social media calls for the BBC to get back the £200,000 of licence fee money paid to Edwards while he was suspended, Mr Campbell gave a hint he might agree, tweeting it is ‘my money too’.

Writing for the BBC website Katie Razzall said: ‘Why didn’t the BBC sack Edwards, in light of his arrest, instead of giving him the space to leave, apparently on his own terms, albeit with no pay off?

‘There will have only been a handful of people in the room where these conversations were taking place.

‘The benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing. The decisions they took can’t have been easy and they will have been weighing up different scenarios – and competing advice.

‘It’s important to note that BBC News, where I’m employed, is editorially independent from the corporate side. We didn’t know about the arrest or charges until earlier this week when the story broke’.

She added: ‘Senior HR and legal advisors will have advised the BBC it had a duty of care towards Edwards as an employee. They will likely also have said he would have a legal case against the corporation if he was sacked unfairly. The BBC says it was made aware of “significant risk to his health”.

‘But it is difficult to see this specifically through an HR or legal prism’.

Former BBC broadcaster Roger Bolton said today: ‘The nature of what Huw Edwards has done is so disgusting and dreadful that I think any residual sympathy for him has gone.’

‘The questions are, when did they [the BBC] know? What did they know?’

‘There is the BBC at the very highest level, the executives, and BBC News. It’s absolutely clear that BBC News and all its editors did not know until this week that Huw Edwards had been charged.

‘But we now know the BBC executives were told in confidence that Huw Edwards had been charged. When did they know he was charged? And the big question is, why did they continue to pay him so much money in these circumstances?’.

It came a BBC insider claimed it was common knowledge that married father-of-five Edwards had messaged ‘lads in the newsroom for drinks’ for years. The source believes that bosses ‘turned a blind eye’ to the star’s behaviour within the newsroom in order to ‘protect’ him as an asset.

The disgraced BBC anchorman, 62, yesterday pleaded guilty to receiving 41 indecent images of children, which included two sexual videos of a boy under nine.

It comes as the BBC admitted it knew Edwards had been arrested on ‘suspicion of serious offences’ last November, but kept paying his £479,000-a-year salary until he resigned in April.

A BBC insider said last night: ‘It was known for a few years he was messaging an assortment of lads in the newsroom for drinks etc, yet the feeling is senior editors might have turned a blind eye. If this was the case, it points to the usual ”protect the star” stuff.’ 

Edwards received seven category ‘A’ images of the very worst kind on his phone after being sent them on WhatsApp by paedophile kAlex Williams, it has emerged. 

He had a total of 41 foul images, showing youngsters between the age of seven and 14, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard yesterday. 

Edwards was arrested on November 8 last year, with the BBC being aware of his arrest, it has now been revealed. He was then charged on June 26. He resigned in April on health grounds.

The News at Ten reader, whose glittering four-decade career is now in tatters, is said to have kept his arrest ‘secret’ from his friends, a former colleague told the Mail yesterday. 

Meanwhile, both the Crown Prosecution Service and Scotland Yard faced secrecy allegations over the handling of Edwards’s arrest and charge.

The CPS denied it had purposefully suppressed details of the charge or given Edwards preferential treatment.

‘Our handling of this case followed our normal procedures working in partnership with police colleagues,’ a spokesman said.

In April, the Mail received information that Edwards had been arrested and asked the Metropolitan Police whether there had been an update in any investigation, but was told there had been ‘no updates in relation to this matter’. Edwards had in fact been arrested last November.

Scotland Yard said it was not able to respond to enquiries in relation to a named person before charge.

Yesterday, Edwards appeared in court to admit three charges of ‘making’ indecent photographs. Of the 41 images sent to the presenter by convicted paedophile Alex Williams, seven of them were ‘Category A’, the most serious type.

During the time of the exchanges with Williams, which took place over eight months, Edwards delivered coverage of Prince Philip’s funeral to the nation.

Just this week, the BBC would not reveal if it had been aware of Edwards’ arrest in November. But it tried to defend its actions in a statement last night.

The BBC said: ‘In November 2023, whilst Mr Edwards was suspended, the BBC as his employer at the time was made aware in confidence that he had been arrested on suspicion of serious offences and released on bail whilst the police continued their investigation. At the time, no charges had been brought against Mr Edwards and the BBC had also been made aware of significant risk to his health.’

It continued: ‘Today we have learnt of the conclusion of the police process in the details as presented to the court. If at any point during the period Mr Edwards was employed by the BBC he had been charged, the BBC had determined it would act immediately to dismiss him. In the end, at the point of charge he was no longer an employee of the BBC.’ It added: ‘We want to reiterate our shock at Mr Edwards’s actions and our thoughts remain with all those affected.’