If the scale of any BBC crisis can be judged by the number of camera crews outside Broadcasting House, the broadcaster’s position was pretty dire by Monday. Lens after lens was trained on its revolving doors, but none of those waiting outside, and few of those inside, seemed to know how much of the story about the presenter and the explicit pictures was part of a phoney war.
To recap, a story in the Sun on Friday night alleged that an unnamed BBC presenter had paid £35,000 to a young person for sexually explicit images sent from the age of 17. While their parents accused the presenter of fuelling a drug habit, on Monday the young person issued a statement through a lawyer saying there was “no truth” to the “rubbish” claims, and suggesting that the paper had ignored their denials.
