The young man whose communications with former news anchor Huw Edwards began the fall from grace of one of the BBC’s best known faces, has broken his silence and given his first interview – detailing how he felt he was groomed and exploited by Edwards, and that on one occasion his parents pretended to be him to arrange a meet-up, and videoed the presenter arriving at the rendezvous.
The man, now 21, has not been named in his interview with the UK’s Mirror newspaper. In the interview, he details:
- He was aged 17 and sleeping rough, having fallen out with his parents when he first messaged the high-profile news anchor. He says that Edwards then deposited some money in his PayPal account, but what started as a friendship soon changed in tone: “He knew I needed the money. I felt like I was being groomed.”
- The man admits sending X-rated messages and videos to the former news anchor, whom he says he looked up to because of his exalted status. Edwards was the BBC’s premier newscaster, trusted with announcing HM Queen Elizabeth’s death in September 2022 and helming a catalogue of high-profile live events including the Queen’s funeral, King Charles’s Coronation and several General Elections, in a career of 50 years at the BBC.
- Edwards gave the man up to £35,000 for indecent images over a period of two years, an arrangement that was curtailed when the then teenager’s mother found the images on her son’s phone. This was the account detailed when The Sun newspaper first published the allegations in July 2023.
- When his parents complained to the BBC and went to The Sun, Edwards was furious, and the young man tried to protect him by denying anything untoward had occurred.
The young man’s account to The Mirror newspaper backs up all the allegations made by The Sun last summer. The newspaper initially didn’t name the broadcaster involved in the story, but Edwards’ wife subsequently identified him, and said he was receiving hospital care after “a serious mental health episode.”
Edwards was suspended by the BBC last summer pending investigation, and it has now transpired that he was arrested in November over a separate investigation into having images of underage abuse on his phone. He was subsequently charged with three counts of making indecent images of children, resigned from the BBC in April and entered a guilty plea in court this week. Sentencing will take place in September.
The BBC’s director-general Tim Davie this week defended the way the BBC had behaved in its treatment of Edwards, including a huge pay rise dating back to April 2023, money he received until his resignation a year later. Edwards’ salary increase was standard and in line with BBC policy, but the fact he worked so little after his suspension in June and now his complete disgrace has raised inevitable indignation about how many UK citizens’ BBC licence fees went into his pocket in that time.