Shamed BBC presenter Huw Edwards has taken to his blog to discuss the ‘hate’ he has received since he was handed a suspended sentence for possessing indecent images of children
Huw Edwards has broken his silence on his child sex offences two years after he was found guilty of three counts of making indecent images of children. The shamed BBC News presenter received 41 illicit images, including seven category A pictures, via WhatsApp from a convicted sex offender.
In September 2024, he was handed a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years and was put on the sex offenders’ register for seven years. Now, the seasoned broadcaster has spoken about his crimes for the first time since he admitted guilt.
In his most recent Substack post, titled “On Hatred,” he recounted his experience of receiving hate messages from trolls online. He started: “For the record, I am not a child rapist.
“Child sex offences are serious crimes. Those crimes cover a broad spectrum of criminality. All child sex crimes are appalling, and some are far worse than others.
“In my case, a three-month forensic examination of my mobiles, computers and storage devices found not a single illegal image. A survey of my internet searches found nothing unlawful. My crime was to click on files sent to me by someone else.”
The broadcaster proceeded to label the legal terminology for his crime as “misleading”, asserting he was merely “accessing an image”. Mr Edwards continued: “It is perfectly normal to hate a crime which involves the abuse of children. I have written previously about the sense of abhorrence I feel about these crimes.
“It is the failure to separate the crime from the perpetrator which fuels mindless hatred – a hatred which impedes society’s ability to understand why some people behave in ways that are destructive and shameful.”
The ex-newsreader proceeded to disclose that he will clarify his “reasons for pleading guilty” in an upcoming post once his conviction becomes spent on September 16. But he hinted: “The criminal justice system – whatever police or prosecutors say – tends not to make meaningful allowances for people whose crimes were committed when they were mentally impaired.”
Addressing the vitriolic messages he receives online, he added that the overwhelming backlash is “an indicator of the quality of public discourse in today’s UK.”
He mused: “More significantly, it tells us about people’s capacity and willingness to pause, listen and try to work out if their reflex hatred is justified.”
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