In an interview with the BBC, Mr Davie admitted that police informed the corporation that Edwards was suspected of possessing category A images, but he said it was not told the ages of the victims in the photographs.
Mr Davie also defended the corporation’s decision not to fire Edwards when it was told about his arrest in November. He said: “The police came to us and said, ‘look, we need to do our work in total confidence, we’ve arrested, please keep this confidential’.
“And at that point, I think the principle is clear in my mind, and I say we thought long and hard about this – this wasn’t a knee-jerk decision. And it was difficult, but when the police, if you think about this in terms of precedent, people do get arrested and then we’ve had situations where no charges [are made] and there’s nothing there to be followed up on.
“In this case, we knew it was serious. We knew no specifics, apart from the category of the potential offences.”
He added: “Another factor at this point was very significant duty-of-care considerations. I think it was right for us to say, ‘Look, we’ll let the police do their business, and then when charges happen, we will act’.”
Mr Davie said it would be “legally challenging” to recoup the vast sums paid to Edwards, who was recently announced as the BBC’s third highest-earning presenter despite being off-air for months.
The director general said he would explore “all options” to claw back some pay, but conceded that recouping Edwards’ rumoured £300,000-a-year pension would be “nigh on impossible”.
He added: “These are, unfortunately, the specifics of how it works, that we can’t claw back pension. I think when it comes to pay, again legally challenging, but we’ll look at all options.”
Mr Davie had a meeting with Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, on Thursday to discuss the handling of the Edwards scandal. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said he was “shocked and appalled” when asked about the case at a press conference in Downing Street.
The BBC has been contacted for comment.