Lisa Nandy to carry talks with BBC chief over Huw Edwards scandal

BBC chief Tim Davie is set to be hauled in for urgent talks with ministers in the wake of disgraced presenter Huw Edwards admitting to accessing indecent photographs of children.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is understood to have summoned the Director General amidst concerns the Corporation continued to pay the presenter’s £470,000-a-year salary after becoming aware of his arrest last November.

The broadcaster said it continued employing the disgraced presenter until he quit in April, meaning he was paid around £200,000 whilst under arrest on ‘suspicion of serious offences’.

The Welsh news reader, 62, pleaded guilty to ‘making’ indecent photographs, with seven of the 41 being of the most serious type, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

Following Edwards’ guilty plea, the BBC claimed it would have dismissed the presenter ‘immediately’ if he was charged while still an employee at the corporation.

Despite the admission, questions were still circulating within the BBC about what bosses knew and when, and whether the star was given preferential treatment.

The corporation is also facing mounting pressure to publish the findings of its own secretive internal review into the conduct of the now disgraced household name, which it never made public.

The offences were committed between December 2020 and August 2021, when Edwards was still a fixture on the BBC.

During that period, he fronted coverage of major national events including the funeral of the late Duke Of Edinburgh in April 2021. 

Both the Crown Prosecution Service and Scotland Yard are also facing secrecy allegations over the handling of Edwards’s arrest and charge. 

The former News at Ten presenter was charged in June, but details were revealed only on Monday after the date of his appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court was released on weekly court lists circulated to the Press.

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.

Edwards came off air in July 2023 after allegations emerged that he had paid a young person for sexually explicit photos, in a separate matter to the court hearing on Wednesday. 

An internal note sent to BBC staff last night, co-signed by bosses including director-general Tim Davie and chief executive of BBC News Deborah Turness, said they were ‘appalled’ by news of Edwards’s guilty plea and there was ‘no place for such behaviour’. 

The BBC’s media and culture editor, Katie Razzall, admitted the corporation was facing ‘key questions’ which would decide how ‘reputationally damaging’ the saga was for the corporation.

She said: ‘Why was he still being paid five months after that arrest and will the BBC now seek to recoup some of his salary?’

Just days ago, the BBC revealed that Edwards was its best paid news presenter last year, even though he had been off air for about nine months.

He was paid up to £479,999 in the 12 months to the end of March and was also given a bumper pay rise of about £40,000 in the year, making him the third highest paid star at the corporation behind Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball.

There are now questions about whether the BBC would seek to recoup some of the presenter’s pay from last year or whether he would volunteer to do so.

A BBC source said the corporation would look into clawing it back but there may not be a legal basis to do so. The pay rise predated his suspension last July and had come off the back of his highly praised work on coverage of the Queen’s death. 

Just this week, the corporation would not reveal if it had been aware of his 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.

 ‘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.’

The note, which was also signed by Deborah Turness, chief executive of BBC News & Current Affairs, and group chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva, added that ‘there can be no place for such behaviour’ at the BBC.

One BBC insider said: ‘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.’   

A senior industry insider said the demise of Edwards marked ‘the end of the anchor’ that is ‘trusted to enter our homes’.

The BBC apologised to the family of the young person at the centre of the complaint that led to Edwards’s suspension.

A report found the need for ‘greater consistency’ in how complaints were processed.