The BBC is coming under fresh pressure over its handling of serious allegations against one of its presenters as it was reported that it took more than six weeks before the initial claims were passed to the director general. A minister has suggested the broadcaster may itself become the focus of an investigation.
On Monday, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, urged the broadcaster to “get on with” its part in any investigation into claims the unnamed male presenter paid a vulnerable teenager for sexually explicit images.
Chalk said the public would “expect allegations of that nature to be dealt with very robustly and promptly”, telling Sky News on Monday that “it may be that, in the fullness of time, there will need to be an investigation about how this allegation was handled”.
The mother of the young person, neither of whom have been named, has told the Sun she went to the press because she felt the BBC was not acting fast enough, adding that she believed the payments had not stopped after she complained to the corporation.
The BBC director general, Tim Davie, has said a set of allegations was made in May, followed by further claims “of a different nature” last Thursday. The presenter remained on air until last week, when journalists at the Sun approached the BBC for comment.
BBC News reported on Monday that it understood that Davie had not himself been told of the allegations until last Thursday.
Chalk said claims that the BBC had allowed the presenter to stay on air despite allegations having been made were “astonishing”. He told Sky News: “You would have expected robust action to have been taken much more quickly. I don’t know precisely what was said, and that is why there needs to be a full discussion of this in the fullness of time.”
The BBC says it is carrying out an internal investigation and has contacted the Metropolitan police. On the former, Chalk said: “I want them to get on with it.” BBC representatives are due to meet officers on Monday.
The claims were first reported by the Sun, which said the presenter paid the young person a total of £35,000 for sexually explicit images over the course of three years – money that was used to fund their crack cocaine habit.
On Monday, the paper reported that the presenter had called the young person after the first press reports appeared. It said the presenter asked: “What have you done?” And it was claimed he asked them to call their mother to get her to “stop the investigation”.
A number of BBC presenters have used social media in recent days to make it clear they are not the unnamed person at the centre of the allegations.
The latest was the BBC Breakfast presenter Jon Kay, who went on Twitter to explain his absence from the show was due to “long-planned annual leave” and that he was not the suspended presenter.
