Police ‘advised BBC to not share particulars of Huw Edwards’ arrest’

The BBC was told by police not to share details of Huw Edwards’ arrest for child abuse image offences in November 2023, a source has said, as the corporation faces backlash on how it handled the scandal.

The veteran broadcaster was arrested on November 8 but that was not made public until this week, when he was ultimately charged with making indecent photographs of children and pleaded guilty in court.

The corporation has said it knew of the veteran broadcaster’s arrest on ‘suspicion of serious offences’ in November, but continued employing him until April.

A BBC source told BBC News that the police told the corporation not to share the information.

The source said: ‘The information was given in strict confidence by the police and was not to be shared.’

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.

However, questions are still being raised about why Edwards continued to receive his large salary – as the highest paid newsreader at the corporation – for five months after his arrest.

Before he resigned in April on medical advice, he was paid between £475,000 and £479,999 for the year 2023/24, according to the BBC’s latest annual report.

This last salary marked a £40,000 pay rise from 2022/23, when he was paid between £435,000 and 439,999.

The BBC has said that if Edwards had been charged while he was still an employee it would have sacked him, but at the point of charge he no longer worked for the corporation.

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.

‘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.

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.

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.

After his guilty plea on Wednesday, a BBC spokesperson 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.’

The corporation added: ‘The BBC is shocked to hear the details which have emerged in court today. There can be no place for such abhorrent behaviour and our thoughts are with all those affected.

‘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.

‘During this period, in the usual way, the BBC has kept its corporate management of these issues separate from its independent editorial functions.’

Davie was expected to hold urgent talks with Ms Nandy over the phone on Thursday, according to BBC News.

The public currently pays £169.50 a year for the licence fee and questions will surely be raised if Edwards’ salary was the best use of that money.

Charlotte Rees-John, an employment law partner at legal firm Irwin Mitchell, said: ‘It would have been possible to dismiss Huw Edwards after he was arrested, but it is not without risk.

‘I suspect this was considered but the safer approach was taken, which was to wait until charged.

‘Suspension on full pay was then appropriate as was the pay rise if contractual.

‘Many other organisations would have taken the risk to protect their reputation, but the BBC is under a greater level of scrutiny and they also had to consider that he was suffering with his mental health and as such at risk of serious harm.’

However, the fact Edwards has now admitted three charges of making indecent photographs – after he was sent 41 illegal images by convicted paedophile Alex Williams – will also likely raise serious questions of trust in figures at the BBC.

Edwards received seven category ‘A’ images of the very worst kind on his phone after being sent them on WhatsApp by paedophile Alex 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.

A Met police spokesperson said: ‘The Met informed the BBC’s Governance Department that Huw Edwards had been arrested on 8 November 2023.

‘Common Law Police Disclosure (CLPD) is the established legal mechanism through which the police can inform an individual’s employer when they are arrested or alleged to have committed an offence. It is often used where the individual holds a position of trust/responsibility with the public.

‘The information is provided in strict confidence in order to enable the individual’s employer to consider what risk mitigation measures might be necessary.’

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.

It comes weeks after the BBC delayed publishing a report in the conduct of former Radio 1 presenter Tim Westwood because of an ongoing police investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct going back four decades.

Westwood ‘strongly denies all allegations of inappropriate behaviour’ and refutes all accusations of wrongdoing. He has not been charged with a criminal offence.

At the time the annual report was published, Davie defended Edwards’ £40,000 pay rise, saying: ‘We are always trying to be very judicious with the spending of public money and no-one wants to waste a pound.

‘But what you’re trying to do, and from the onset of that affair, was trying to act proportionally, fairly and navigate this appropriately.

‘I think that’s what we did… but I think we wouldn’t have wasted money if we weren’t doing the right thing.’

Edwards resigned from the BBC in April ‘on the basis of medical advice from his doctors’ after unrelated allegations that he paid a young person for sexually explicit photos.

Police found no evidence of criminal behaviour in relation to this matter.

Edwards will next appear in court on September 16.

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.’