How Huw Edwards scandal unfolded up to BBC presenter’s resignation
Newsreader Huw Edwards resigned and left the BBC yesterday “on the basis of medical advice from his doctors”.
His resignation follows allegations that he paid a young person for sexually explicit photos.
The 62-year-old presenter’s wife said last July that he intended to respond to the allegations “once well enough to do so”. To date, Edwards is yet to comment in public.
Here is a full timeline of Edwards’s time at the BBC and how the allegations against him unfolded, leading to his eventual resignation.
After joining BBC News as a trainee in 1984, Edwards became a political reporter, and two years later, parliamentary correspondent for BBC Wales.
He was the BBC’s chief political correspondent at Westminster by the early 1990s and became a regular face on the BBC News channel (then called BBC News 24) after its launch in 1997.
After working as an occasional cover presenter on BBC One’s Six O’Clock News, one of the most-viewed television news bulletins in the UK, Edwards became a main anchor on the programme in 1999.
He was promoted to the Ten O’Clock News – the broadcaster’s leading evening news programme – four years later.
In the decades that followed, Edwards presented and commentated on major national events for the BBC, including the 2011 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Brexit referendum results in 2016, the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh in 2021, and King Charles’s coronation last year.
The Welsh broadcaster also announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022 and later fronted coverage of her funeral, and he led the BBC’s general election coverage in 2019.
In April last year, the parents of a young person claiming to have been paid by Edwards for sexually explicit photos contacted South Wales Police to report the allegations. At this stage, the force said the information related to “the welfare of an adult” and that “no criminality was identified”.
The following month, a family member of the young person went to a BBC building, reportedly in Cardiff, to make a complaint about the behaviour of a then-unnamed presenter.
A 29-minute call from the family member to the BBC’s audience services team was then reportedly referred to the BBC’s corporate investigations team, which decided that while the complaint did not include any alleged criminality, it did warrant further investigation.
The investigations team said it carried out checks to verify the complainant’s identity, as well as emailing them to request more information.
The BBC’s corporate investigations team said that having received no reply to its email, it tried to place a call to a mobile number provided by the complainant, which reportedly did not connect.
The BBC said no further attempts to contact the complainant were made after this but that the case “remained open”, while The Sun newspaper later reported that “the family say no one from the corporation rang them for a proper interview after the initial complaint”.
The Sun told the BBC about allegations regarding Edwards, via the corporate press office.
The BBC said The Sun’s claims contained new allegations that differed from those initially received by its investigations team months earlier, and that this was the first time BBC Director-General Tim Davie or any of the corporation’s executive directors were made aware of the case.
Edwards first learned of the allegations when a senior manager spoke with him on this day, according to his wife, when the BBC said it was agreed that the presenter should not appear on air while the allegations against him were being investigated.
Mr Davie was later asked why Edwards was not spoken to sooner and replied: “You don’t take that complaint directly to the presenter unless it has been verified.”
The Sun’s first story was published a day later. It detailed claims from a mother that an unnamed BBC presenter had paid their now 20-year-old child tens of thousands of pounds for explicit photos over a three-year period that began when the child was 17 years old.
The mother alleged that their child had used the money paid for the explicit photos to fund a crack cocaine habit and that they were worried they could “wind up dead”.
As well as contacting the Metropolitan Police, the BBC said in its first public statement that any information would “be acted upon appropriately, in line with internal processes”.
The BBC said it had received some materials from the family member regarding the complaint. With the accused presenter still unnamed, there was widespread speculation on social media about their identity.
The BBC said it had suspended a male staff member, adding that it was “working as quickly as possible to establish the facts”.
The Sun meanwhile reported that the accused presenter allegedly made two calls to the young person at the centre of the original allegations, asking them: “What have you done?” as well as appealing to them to call their mother to “stop the investigation”.
BBC representatives met detectives from the Met Police the next day but there was still “no investigation at this time”.
The lawyer representing the young person involved in the original allegations said, in a letter to the BBC, that “the allegations reported in The Sun newspaper are rubbish”, and claimed The Sun had proceeded to publish “their inappropriate article” despite the young person reportedly having sent the newspaper a denial.
In response, The Sun said it had “reported a story about two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child”; that this complaint “was not acted upon by the BBC”; and that it had “seen evidence that supports their concerns”, adding: “It’s now for the BBC to properly investigate.”
Reportedly telling The Sun that they stood by their account, the young person’s stepfather was quoted as saying the allegations were originally put to the BBC “for an hour”.
Mr Davie used a press conference launching the BBC’s annual report, and an interview on Radio 4, to further detail the corporation’s response to the allegations.
He said he wished to examine whether the BBC raises “red flags quick enough” when complaints are made, while the corporation admitted there were “lessons to be learned following this exercise”.
Another young person, in their early 20s, then told the BBC that afternoon that they had felt threatened by a message from the same unnamed presenter.
The individual claimed to have been contacted on a dating app and pressured to meet up. They never did, but they received “abusive, expletive-filled” messages after hinting online that they might name the presenter, which the BBC verified were sent from a phone number belonging to the presenter.
This was followed by allegations in The Sun that the presenter broke Covid lockdown rules in February 2021 to meet a 23-year-old, who he had met on a dating site.
The tabloid also published what it claimed was an Instagram chat between the presenter and a 17-year-old, in which the presenter sent messages including love heart emojis.
The same day that detectives decided there was no information to indicate that a criminal offence had been committed, Edwards was named by his wife, Vicky Flind, as the BBC presenter at the centre of the allegations.
In a statement on his behalf, Ms Flind said she was “doing this primarily out of concern for his mental wellbeing and to protect our children” after “five extremely difficult days for our family”.
She said Edwards was “suffering from serious mental health issues”, adding: “As is well documented, he has been treated for severe depression in recent years.
“The events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters, he has suffered another serious episode and is now receiving in-patient hospital care where he’ll stay for the foreseeable future.
“Once well enough to do so, he intends to respond to the stories that have been published. To be clear, Huw was first told that there were allegations being made against him last Thursday.”
In an email to staff, Mr Davie said the BBC’s internal investigation would continue now police were no longer involved.
The Sun said it had no plans to publish further allegations and that it would “provide the BBC team with a confidential and redacted dossier containing serious and wide-ranging allegations which we have received, including some from BBC personnel“.
The BBC then reported new allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Edwards towards junior staff, in which two current workers and one former staff member claimed to have been sent messages that made them uncomfortable.
Last November, BBC insiders with knowledge of the ongoing internal investigation told i they did not expect Edwards, who was still suspended, to return to his high-profile role which included fronting state occasions and presenting the BBC’s flagship news bulletin.
Another senior newsroom insider said: “The review is in and unfortunately there isn’t a path back for Huw. There is no expectation he will return.”
In February, the BBC said it had apologised to the family of a young person for its handling of their complaint about Edwards’s behaviour.
In a statement, it said a review into its handling of non-editorial complaints commissioned in the wake of the scandal had concluded, finding a need for “greater consistency”.
Despite the BBC saying it had tried to contact the family twice after the initial complaint in May 2023 and before The Sun published its first exclusive story that July, a review by Deloitte found the BBC’s senior leadership were only made aware of the issue on 6 July, and that the complaint had not been escalated quickly enough.
It was reportedly not logged on the BBC’s case management system and there was no “documented process” in place for following up on the allegations, meaning there “was no opportunity for wider visibility of the case within the BBC”.
BBC Group chief operating officer Leigh Tavaziva said the corporation had since apologised to the family.
On Monday, Edwards resigned “on medical advice”, the BBC revealed.
A BBC spokesperson said: “Huw Edwards has today resigned and left the BBC. After 40 years of service, Huw has explained that his decision was made on the basis of medical advice from his doctors.
“The BBC has accepted his resignation which it believes will allow all parties to move forward. We don’t believe it appropriate to comment further.”
In light of his resignation, it is understood that the outcome of the BBC’s internal investigation is likely to be kept under wraps while BBC culture and media editor Katie Razzall told BBC News that Edwards will not receive a pay-off.
