The BBC has announced the Metropolitan Police has asked it to “pause its investigations” while it looks into allegations an unnamed presenter paid a troubled young person tens of thousands of pounds for sexual images.
It comes after the BBC’s corporate investigations team spoke to detectives on Monday.
A BBC spokesperson said: “As a result of this meeting, the BBC has been asked to pause its investigations into the allegations while the police scope future work.”
They also published a timetable showing a family member of the young person made the first complaint in person at a “BBC building” on May 18 and a day later the investigations team ruled “it did not include an allegation of criminality, but nonetheless merited further investigation”.
BBC chief Tim Davie told reporters the BBC had “not been given a time scale” by officers into how long the police investigation would take.
He said: “Clearly any affair of this nature is serious in terms of the BBC’s reputation and trust is absolutely fundamental to the BBC”, adding: “I think it’s too early to say how this impacts the BBC’s reputation in terms of trust”.
He refused to say if the presenter involved had offered his resignation, saying he “wouldn’t comment on a private conversation” and said issues of privacy and public interest had to be balanced throughout the process.
Mr Davie said the BBC will “pass any material we have” to investigating officers and admitted “questions have been asked about how this case was initially managed” and that “lessons will be learned” about how complaints are dealt with.
It was only on July 6, when The Sun contacted the BBC press office, that “the director-general or any executive directors at the BBC were aware of the case.”
The spokesperson said: “The BBC has processes and protocols for receiving information and managing complaints when they are first made. We always take these matters extremely seriously and seek to manage them with the appropriate duty of care. The events of recent days have shown how complex and challenging these kinds of cases can be and how vital it is that they are handled with the utmost diligence and care.”
Mr Davie insisted on Tuesday that trust was the corporation’s “top priority” as he faced questions over the allegations.
Mr Davie said the initial complaint was “serious” but “did not include an allegation of criminality”.
He added: “When The Sun made new allegations on July 6 they were different to the matters considered by BBC Corporate Investigations and those new allegations clearly related to potential criminal activity, criminality, that in a nutshell is the difference.”
The director-general was grilled by reporters at a briefing called to discuss the BBC’s annual report and arranged before the scandal erupted.The Met are conducting further inquiries to establish if any crime has been committed. It has been reported the relationship began when the person was 17. Although the age of consent is 16, it is illegal to make or possess indecent images of anyone under 18.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said later: “We have asked the BBC to pause its own investigation while we continue our assessment to establish whether there is evidence of a criminal offence being committed.
“The assessment is being led by detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command and follows a virtual meeting with representatives from the BBC on the morning of Monday, 10 July.
“There remains no police investigation at this time.”
The scandal overshadowed the publication of the BBC’s annual report which boasted that the organisation was the “No 1 most trusted news brand in the UK”.
Writing in the report, which was put together before the latest scandal broke, Mr Davie said “trust” was the BBC’s “first priority”. He said: “We know that trust in the BBC must be earned every day. That’s why we have worked harder than ever to open up our processes and show audiences more of the work that goes on behind the scenes of our journalism.”
The report shows the BBC investigated 34 “formal cases of bullying and harassment” in 2022/23 and 37 whistleblowing cases which cover “safeguarding concerns about a child or young person or a vulnerable adult” as well as “actual or potential criminal offences” and “anything which may bring the corporation into serious disrepute”.
Mr Davie’s personal position has been bolstered by the support of the Prime Minister, but Rishi Sunak admitted he was “shocked” by the allegations.
En route to the Nato summit in Lithuania, he told reporters: “They were shocking, concerning allegations, of course they were. The Culture Secretary spoke to the director-general on Sunday and is reassured the process they are undertaking is rigorous and will be swift and so we have those reassurances.”
The story took another twist on Monday night when the young person at the centre of the controversy said “nothing inappropriate or unlawful” happened with the presenter, who is said to have given them £35,000 over three years.
Their version of events, in a letter from their lawyer, called the original story “rubbish”. They said they told The Sun on Friday that there was “no truth to it”.
But The Sun has stood by its reporting.
