Huw Edwards, 61, is the star presenter of Britain’s BBC. Since Monday, he was at the heart of a sex scandal, without his identity being revealed until now. A woman accused him in The Sun of having paid for her child in exchange for child pornography photos. This Wednesday, July 12 in the evening, the presenter’s wife therefore revealed that he was the subject of this denunciation. The latter added that her husband was hospitalized following a new episode of depression, an illness from which the journalist has suffered for several years.
At the same time, police said they had found no evidence that a criminal offense had been committed in connection with the charges against him, which have been making headlines in the British press for five days. Huw Edwards, who has been in charge of the major 10 p.m. news for twenty years, is one of the most famous presenters in the United Kingdom and the best paid at the BBC, earning more than 400,000 pounds (466,000 euros) per year.
Entered in 1984 at the BBC, where he quickly rose through the ranks, it was he who announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022, remaining several hours on the air, he again who was on the aerial for his funeral and for the coronation of King Charles III in May. “I make this statement on behalf of my husband Huw Edwards, after five extremely difficult days for our family,” his wife Vicky Flind wrote in a statement to Britain’s PA news agency.
She added that her husband “suffer[ed] from serious problems” with depression and that the events of the last few days had caused a new crisis which led to his hospitalization. “Once he is in a condition to do so, he intends to respond to the articles that have been published,” Ms Flind continued, revealing that the presenter, suspended since Sunday, was briefed on July 6. charges against him.
The police for their part explained that they had spoken in particular with the family who had accused the presenter, in the tabloid The Sun, of having paid 35,000 pounds (some 40,000 euros) to his child in exchange for pornographic photos, over a period of three years, which would have fed the addiction to crack of this young person. The officers also spoke to the latter, who called her mother’s accusations “bullshit”, and to the BBC, before concluding that they had not obtained information supporting a criminal offence.
After these initial revelations, other accusations of threatening or abusive behavior had targeted the presenter in the press. The BBC, which had been under enormous pressure over the case for several days, said it was “grateful” in a statement on Wednesday evening that the police “quickly” came to their conclusions.
On Tuesday, its chief executive, Tim Davie, admitted that the Sun’s initial accusations were very damaging to this audiovisual group and announced a review of internal procedures in the event of a “red alert”. The BBC had acknowledged having been contacted in mid-May by the family. At the time, this audiovisual group did not tell the presenter about it and its internal investigation service – which, according to Mr Davie, has received 250 complaints in the last six months – had only tried twice. by email and phone to contact the family, as the original charges did not include “allegations” of criminal nature.
No British media had given the name of the presenter for fear of sanctions for defamation or invasion of privacy. But his identity had circulated widely on social media and his absence from the 10 p.m. news had not gone unnoticed by millions of BBC viewers. The Sun, a successful tabloid owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s group, is one of the BBC’s most vocal critics. He still devoted seven pages to the case on Wednesday.
