Huw Edwards’s image and voice are being urgently removed from hours of BBC archive footage, starting with family and entertainment content on iPlayer, the Observer has learned.
Photographs of the disgraced Welsh television news anchor are also being removed by prominent institutions and charities, and from websites throughout Wales, where he was a national figurehead.
On Wednesday, Edwards, 62, who was paid more than £470,000 a year by the BBC, admitted accessing abusive images of children as young as seven at Westminster magistrates court in London.
Talks inside the BBC have focused on protecting future audiences from upsetting repeats of his most visible work in news and on state occasions, such as the funerals of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II: “We are actively considering the availability of our archive,” a BBC spokesperson said. “While we don’t routinely delete content from the BBC archive, as it is a matter of historical record, we do consider the continued use and reuse of material.”
A 2006 episode of Doctor Who featuring Edwards has already been taken down, the BBC confirmed. An episode of Great British Menu in which he took part has also disappeared.
The BBC has faced such emergencies before, in particular when the child abuse of radio DJ and television star Jimmy Savile was exposed after his death in 2011. And on Saturday, it removed a video of Axel Rudakubana, the teenager accused of murdering three girls in Southport, after it emerged he had starred in a Children in Need advert in 2018.
Jean Seaton, author of a history of the BBC, is not an advocate of censorship or airbrushing the past but sees the need for swift, specific action. “Savile’s entertainment shows centred on him – so deleting much of that archive made sense,” she said. “But Edwards’s role was adjacent to coverage with importance much larger than him – news and national events. That he was the familiar face of such important programmes is a problem. But these events are ours. I suspect the BBC can’t or won’t delete the archive – it may make clearly badged alternatives.”
The fast pace at which Edwards’s face and name is being removed in Wales is in direct proportion to his previous status. His image was used to promote schemes within the national library and he was a celebrity supporter of other organisations. In the past few days, artist Steve Jenkins has painted over his mural of Edwards in his home town of Llangennech, where a charity and a community centre have also erased tributes to his work. Cardiff University is reviewing his honorary professorship.
On Saturday, the Welsh former interim chair of the BBC, Dame Elan Closs Stephens, was forced to apologise for a remark in which she honoured Edwards’s work during a Welsh radio programme, Beti a’i Phobol, also calling him “Poor Huw”. In a statement, Elan has confirmed she had been aware of the arrest when she spoke, but not of the “terrible details which have come to light this week”.
Edwards’s offences took place between 2020 and 2022, when 41 indecent images of children were sent to him by another man on WhatsApp, including seven category A images, the most severe classification, two of which showed a child between seven and nine.
Outrage among former BBC colleagues initially centred on news that Edwards had continued to receive his full salary for 2023-24 – which included a £40,000 increase from April 2023 – after his suspension in July last year. This had followed allegations in the Sun unrelated to the later charges. The sum Edwards got amounted to around £200,000. His boss, Tim Davie, the director general, had been informed of his arrest in November.
Davie has said the BBC had to follow legal and personnel advice while Edwards was still presumed innocent. The police asked Davie to keep the arrest secret to prevent news reports interfering with an investigation into images sent to Edwards by a convicted Welsh paedophile, Alex Williams. Davie has also indicated that Edwards’s mental health was a concern.
Edwards resigned in April, before the grave nature of the offences was known. The BBC says he did not receive a payoff.
On Thursday, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, requested a meeting with Davie to find out what was known about the case and when. Since then, Nandy has called on Edwards to return the money he earned since he was charged.
A former top BBC news executive also spoke this weekend of his surprise that Davie’s team had felt legally tied to Edwards’s contract after his arrest. “There must have been a clause about not bringing the BBC into disrepute, so it seems strange,” he said. The former newsreader’s option of suing his former employers if he was later found innocent was a likely factor, he suggested.
Davie has said it was not “a knee-jerk” decision, adding: “When you think about this in terms of precedent, people do get arrested and then we’ve had situations where [there are] no charges and there’s nothing there to be followed up on.”
The decision not to reveal the findings of an internal investigation into Edwards’s behaviour is less clear, and some, including Nandy, have called for more information about Edwards’s record in the newsroom, where it is claimed he repeatedly sent inappropriate messages. BBC Two’s Newsnight broadcast allegations concerning Edwards’s messages to junior members of staff, and investigations were promised. In February, an independent report by Deloitte found a need for “greater consistency” in how BBC complaints were processed.
Edwards’s suspension came after his wife, Vicky Flind, identified him as the unnamed senior broadcasting figure at the centre of the Sun’s allegations that a young person had been paid for sexually explicit images. That anonymous young man has now claimed in the Mirror that he was the victim of a lengthy grooming campaign by the newsreader.
Inside BBC News, there is a real fear that the scandal will further undermine trust in the public service broadcaster. “It’s a classic no-win situation, because it was a confidential HR-led investigation rather than something quasi-judicial, like the Savile investigation,” an editor said this weekend. She believes the BBC is stuck between calls for transparency and its duty of care to staff. Genuine concerns about prejudicing a court case would also have counted, although she said staff would like clear updates about how complaints procedures have been strengthened.
• This article was amended on 6 August 2024 to reflect the BBC’s clarification that a £40,000 pay increase had been agreed (in February 2023) and applied to Huw Edwards’ salary before the time of his arrest.
