The Sun will not publish more allegations against Huw Edwards as it defends reporting of ‘very serious’ claims

The Sun newspaper has said it will not publish any further claims regarding Huw Edwards, the BBC star at the centre of what the paper calls “very serious” allegations.

The Metropolitan Police have said no criminal offence has been committed by the newsreader and it will not be taking further action.

The tabloid published front page allegations five days ago that said the then unnamed BBC presenter had allegedly paid £35,000 for explicit photos from a young person he had started talking to at age 17, according to their mother, who spoke to the paper.

However this was called into question when a lawyer for the young person labelled the story “rubbish” and claimed they had informed a journalist at The Sun of this last Friday.

On Wednesday night the wife of Mr Edwards, Vicky Flind, named him as the BBC presenter facing allegations and said the news anchor is receiving hospital care for poor mental health, where he will remain for the “foreseeable future”.

A spokesperson for The Sun said: “The allegations published by The Sun were always very serious. Further serious allegations have emerged in the past few days.

“It is right that the BBC’s Corporate Investigations Team continues to investigate these thoroughly and deals with them in the way that they think is appropriate.

“The Sun will cooperate with the BBC’s internal investigation process. We will 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 Sun has no plans to publish further allegations.”

The paper says that it never published claims of criminal behaviour by Mr Edwards, but that these were the product of speculation from other media outlets after their initial story.

Their reporting had said the young person began contact with the presenter aged 17.

The spokesperson added: “We must also re-emphasise that The Sun at no point in our original story alleged criminality and also took the decision neither to name Mr Edwards nor the young person involved in the allegations.

“Suggestions about possible criminality were first made at a later date by other media outlets, including the BBC.

“From the outset, we have reported a story about two very concerned and frustrated parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and payments from him that fuelled the drug habit of a young person.

“We reported that the parents had already been to the police who said that they couldn’t help. The parents then made a complaint to the BBC which was not acted upon. It is now for the BBC to properly investigate.”

The BBC has said it will conduct an internal inquiry, which was paused while the police carried out their investigation.

The BBC said: “The police had previously asked us to pause our fact finding investigations and we will now move forward with that work, ensuring due process and a thorough assessment of the facts, whilst continuing to be mindful of our duty of care to all involved.”