Veteran BBC presenter Huw Edwards is in hospital receiving care for what his wife says are “serious mental health issues”. It follows a week of reports from UK tabloid The Sun, which collected a series of accusations regarding the then-unnamed presenter’s alleged interactions with various young people — most serious was the allegation Edwards paid for sexual images from a 17-year-old, something which, if true, would attract criminal charges and potential jail time.
The young person in question has dismissed the story, which relied on anonymous quotes from their parents, as “rubbish”. The police have so far found no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing. There may be more to come — other journalists are reportedly looking into Edwards — but The Sun has announced it has no current plans to publish further allegations.
Crikey looks at the saga, and where it fits in the decades of enmity between Murdoch’s UK papers and the BBC.
The initial coverage
On Friday last week, The Sun reported an unnamed “BBC personality” had been accused of paying a young person, allegedly addicted to crack cocaine, “more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images”. While the age of consent in England and Wales is 16 years old, the law on indecent images treats all under-18s as children.
The story — with its implications of criminal sexual activity with a minor conjuring the horrors revealed by Operation Yewtree — caused an immediate scandal, and the presenter was suspended. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the claims “very serious and concerning”, and attacks were mounted from conservative politicians. Indeed, it was speculated that if the presenter remained anonymous, a Tory MP may use parliamentary privilege to name him.
Almost immediately, questions were raised about the story. Based on the anonymous quotes from the young person’s mother and stepfather, the young person in question, now aged 20, issued a statement on Monday via their lawyer saying the allegations were “rubbish”, that the paper had not contacted them before publication, nor added the denial they gave The Sun on the day the story was published. The newspaper added a line in its stories on Monday, stating: “A lawyer for the youngster says nothing unlawful or inappropriate happened”.
So, while speculation continued, other presenters were wrongly identified and Edwards’ colleagues urged him to come forward, as the spotlight was turned on the paper. Had they contacted the young person they had made the allegations about? Was The Sun alleging criminal activity, and if so, did it have any hard evidence? How thoroughly had it interrogated the initial claims before publication?
The double down
Over the week that followed, The Sun distanced itself from the original story while at the same time continuing its coverage of Edwards (still unnamed at this point). The Sun published allegations from another person, claiming to have met Edwards on a dating app, and claimed that he broke COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in February 2021 to visit them at their flat. Another person told the tabloid the presenter had started a “creepy” Instagram chat with them when they were 17.
Separately, a person in their early 20s told BBC News that they had connected with Edwards on a dating app. The person alleges that when they hinted online they might reveal the presenter’s identity, Edwards sent abusive messages that “frightened” them.
The aftermath
On Wednesday, Edwards’ wife Vicky Flind brought the speculation to a close, releasing a statement that said her husband was “suffering from serious mental health issues” and was now “receiving inpatient hospital care where he will stay for the foreseeable future”. He would respond to the stories, the statement continued, when he was “well enough to do so”.
The same day, the London Metropolitan Police issued a statement saying there was “no information to indicate that a criminal offence has been committed”.
On what was a busy day, as the broadcaster resumed its investigation into Edwards following the police statement, new claims were aired on BBC Newsnight from two current and one former BBC worker, who said they had received “inappropriate” messages from Edwards on social media.
At the same time, The Sun issued a statement claiming it “never alleged criminality” in its initial story, despite the fact it ran (and at time of writing has not removed from its website) a headline that reads: “Top BBC star who ‘paid child for sex pictures’ could be charged by cops and face years in prison, expert says”.
The history
Murdoch papers have regularly savaged the BBC, going back at least to the Thatcher government, whose ideological opposition to the BBC met in perfect sympathy with Murdoch’s commercial opposition and with which Murdoch’s papers were particularly close. As Chris Horrie and Steve Clarke wrote in their 1994 history Fuzzy Monsters: Fear and Loathing at the BBC:
Rupert Murdoch’s News International was a shining example of the new age of enterprise Mrs Thatcher had ushered in. It was union-free, dedicated to giving the punter what they wanted and hugely profitable. Murdoch’s papers had cheered on the prime minister all the way and savaged her critics, including the BBC.
John Jewell of Cardiff University, writing in The Conversation, goes on:
Every opportunity to criticise the BBC was seized upon — with Murdoch using his substantial media concerns in this country to support the prime minister, while his companies received direct benefits as a consequence of policy decisions taken by her government.
Little has changed since, with Rupert and his sons cropping up periodically to complain about the “untouchable” BBC and its “chilling” size and ambition. Meanwhile, every scandal at the company is spun into days, sometimes weeks, of coverage.
In that ongoing war, the Edwards saga might be the most brutal front yet.
