BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, has added provisions to its rulebook that give it the power to retrospectively strip winners of its competitive awards of their trophies in cases of convictions of a crime that results in a prison term or “proven dishonesty,” starting with winners in 2025.
BAFTA chair Sara Putt on Wednesday unveiled a new “forfeiture process” based on a review, citing the case of former BBC News host Huw Edwards, who pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children this year.
“Earlier this year, we were shocked by the news of the former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards’ arrest and subsequent conviction for child pornography offenses,” Putt wrote in a letter to BAFTA members. “He won seven individual BAFTA Cymru awards for television presenting between 2002 and 2017. Following the news, deeply complex questions were raised regarding historic awards won by individuals and specifically, whether awards won in competition should ever be removed retrospectively.”
Her letter highlighted that “we are not the only awards body to navigate these complex issues.”
The review concluded that “there are exceptional grounds in which an award won in competition should be reviewed and possibly rescinded, and that we need to provide more clarity to entrants on this in our annual awards rulebooks,” Putt explained. “Starting in 2025, a forfeiture process will be introduced to our awards rulebooks with specific guidance on what would lead us to consider revoking a competitive award. This will include entries rendered ineligible through proven dishonesty, and the very rare instance of a winner being convicted of a serious criminal offense resulting in a prison sentence.”
The BAFTA chair also highlighted: “We are very clear that our honorary awards, such as our Fellowships, Special Awards and Outstanding Contribution awards, can be revoked because they are gifted by the academy – which means they are not ‘won’ in competition.”
BAFTA thought “very carefully about whether we could try to apply this criteria retrospectively now,” Putt noted, but “agreed it would be impossible to do this properly. So we will look forward and apply this criteria to all competitive awards presented from 2025 onwards.”
Concluded Putt: “No solution is perfect and there may be instances where the outcomes of this review are tested in the future, so we will review these principles and processes along with our other awards rules every year.”