Huw Edwards’s family is being advised on communications strategy by the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as the suspended BBC presenter battles to save his career, sources have told the Guardian.
Vicky Flind, Edwards’s wife, talked to Coulson before releasing a statement on Wednesday that identified Edwards as the person accused by the Sun of giving £35,000 to a crack cocaine user in return for explicit images.
Her statement elicited substantial sympathy from colleagues, former colleagues, and members of the public after it revealed Edwards was in hospital with mental health issues.
Coulson, who went to prison after being found guilty of phone hacking offences, was formerly David Cameron’s Downing Street director of communications. He now runs a PR agency that specialises in crisis management for high-profile individuals.
His involvement in the case pits him against former colleagues at Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. They include the chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, a former lover of Coulson. The two were tried together at a high-profile Old Bailey trial in 2014, with a jury finding Coulson guilty of conspiracy to hack phones but clearing Brooks of any wrongdoing.
A decade later, Brooks is in charge of a company defending against questions over the Sun’s reporting on Edwards spiralling into wider calls for press regulation, while Coulson is on the opposite side trying to limit the damage to Edwards’s family caused by the Sun’s reporting.
He is not handling day-to-day communications for Edwards, with inquiries instead being sent to the leading London law firm Harbottle and Lewis.
On Friday the Sun condemned “sanctimonious haters of tabloids” who have pushed back on its reporting, pointing to subsequent investigations into Edwards’s conduct by BBC News reporters. The newspaper said its original story was clearly in the public interest because it gave a “voice to two worried parents” who approached it to protect their child, after being unhappy with initial responses from South Wales police and the BBC.
Edwards has not publicly responded to any of the allegations against him but has privately been in contact with colleagues and former colleagues. Jon Sopel, the host of the News Agents podcast, said he had spoken to Edwards, who was “not overly impressed” with the BBC’s coverage of the allegations.
The suspended News at Ten host has also been checking Twitter in recent days, with his account used to like three tweets since the story broke: one criticising the Sun’s reporting, another suggesting the Sun could face a major libel bill as result of the allegations, and another about the history of blue plaques in Dulwich. They have since been unliked.
The Sun has rowed back on its initial suggestion that illegal activity could have taken place and insists its story was always about concerned parents worried about Edwards’s relationship with their child. However, the 20-year-old at the heart of the story has dismissed their mother and stepfather’s allegations in the Sun as “rubbish”.
The newspaper has always emphasised that the mother and stepfather did not want any money from the Sun, and the tabloid did not pay them. However, the Guardian has since revealed that Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV, the Sun’s sister television station, earlier this week offered the couple tens of thousands of pounds for an exclusive interview.
Sources at News UK suggested this interview has now been recorded and edited, with the couple filmed in silhouette and their voices distorted, ensuring they are not identified. There were suggestions TalkTV planned to run an edited version of the interview on Thursday night, but News UK says the interview is now being held for a potential three-part documentary.
Edwards, who earned £435,000 last year, faces a long and expensive battle to save his career amid further accusations of potentially inappropriate behaviour, including from BBC News colleagues. Although the police concluded he has no criminal case to answer, an internal BBC investigation may still find he breached the terms of his contract in ways that were not illegal.
The Sun argued on Friday: “What do our critics, especially Mr Edwards’s pious media friends, think we should have done? Told the family to shove off? Turned a blind eye to what appeared to be a clear abuse of power by a household name, even at the risk of this young person’s drug habit worsening?”
