The BBC staff member suspended on allegations of sexual misconduct was identified by his wife on Wednesday as Huw Edwards, an anchor on the BBC’s flagship nightly news program and one of its most prominent and distinguished figures.
At the same time, London police said there was no evidence that Mr. Edwards had committed a crime, following a newspaper report last week that an unnamed BBC personality paid more than £35,000, or almost $45,000, to a teenager in exchange for explicit images over a period of several years that began when the person was 17 years old.
Mr. Edwards’s wife, Vicky Flind, issued a statement on her husband’s behalf on Wednesday evening, saying he had been hospitalized with “serious mental health issues” and would respond to the allegations when he had recovered.
“The events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters,” Ms. Flind said. “He has suffered another serious episode and is now receiving inpatient care, where he’ll stay for the foreseeable future.”
The Metropolitan Police looked into the allegations after being contacted by the BBC. In a statement issued shortly before Ms. Flind’s, the police said detectives had concluded their inquiry and “have determined there is no information to indicate that a criminal offense has been committed.”
On Monday, a lawyer for the teenager told the BBC that the report, in the London tabloid The Sun last Friday, was “rubbish,” and that nothing inappropriate or unlawful had occurred between his client and Mr. Edwards. The Sun said it stood by the story, though on Wednesday, it said it would publish no further allegations about the news anchor.
The news that Mr. Edwards is the target of the investigation was no longer much of a surprise — his name had been widely rumored for days on social media — but it nonetheless landed with a thunderclap in Britain.
A veteran Welsh-born newscaster who joined the BBC as a trainee in 1984, the 61-year-old Mr. Edwards is, for many British viewers, synonymous with the BBC. He is the anchor who broke the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September, putting on a dark suit to mark the solemn moment.
Mr. Edwards then led the BBC’s coverage of the queen’s funeral. He also anchored coverage of other big news events in Britain, including the coronation of King Charles III in May, the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018, and the last general election, in 2019. He regularly anchors “BBC News at Ten,” the main evening news program for the broadcaster, and is one of its highest-paid stars, earning up to 439,999 pounds ($571,000) a year, according to the BBC’s annual report.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this week that the reports of payments were “shocking and concerning” and called for a swift, vigorous investigation.
For the BBC, it is the latest in a series of crises growing out of the conduct or statements of its on-air personalities. Most notoriously, the broadcaster faced fierce criticism over a scandal involving Jimmy Savile, a famous comedian and BBC host who was accused of being a serial sex offender after his death in 2011.
The BBC said it was first notified of the reports of sexual misconduct against Mr. Edwards by the teenager’s mother in mid-May, but it was not clear that any crime had been committed. Then, after getting additional details on Thursday, it suspended Mr. Edwards and asked the London police to get involved.
Despite saying it would not publish further allegations, a spokeswoman for The Sun, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, said “the allegations published by The Sun were always very serious.” She said the paper would cooperate with the BBC’s investigation, providing it with a “confidential and redacted dossier, containing serious and wide-ranging allegations which we have received, including some from BBC personnel.”
On Tuesday, the BBC reported that a second person had come forward with allegations that the still-unnamed staff member had sent angry and bullying messages to the person via a dating app. The BBC reported that this person, whom it did not identify, felt threatened by “abusive, expletive-filled messages.”
The BBC had paused its own investigation of Mr. Edwards and the photos at the request of the police. On Wednesday, it said it would “move forward with that work, ensuring due process and a thorough assessment of the facts.” It did not comment on Mr. Edwards’s hospitalization or future job status.
The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, has faced questions about why the corporation waited seven weeks after the initial complaint was lodged about Mr. Edwards by the mother of the teenager, before confronting him or taking other action. Mr. Davie said the allegations were not relayed to him or other senior managers until last week.
But the case raises complex legal and privacy questions. Under British law, the age of consent is 16, but it is a crime to take, make, share or possess indecent images of anyone under 18. Lacking clear information, neither the BBC nor other news organizations named Mr. Edwards, even as they provided wall-to-wall coverage.
For the BBC, that coverage has at times taken on an almost surreal quality: Correspondents reported on painful personal allegations about one of their longtime colleagues, whom they did not name but whose identity was an open secret in the newsroom. They also pressed their boss, Mr. Davie, on the air over his handling of the matter.
The confirmation of Mr. Edwards’s involvement ended a week of feverish speculation in which several other prominent BBC stars took to social media to deny they were the subject of the allegations.
The case has become a divisive issue within the BBC: Jeremy Vine, a prominent BBC host, called on the staff member to disclose his identity, saying the rumors were damaging to his colleagues who were falsely accused, as well as to the BBC itself.
But another presenter, Richard Bacon, criticized him for being unsympathetic to the upheaval the staff member and his family were experiencing. “You’re more emotionally intelligent than this,” he replied to Mr. Vine on Twitter.
Jon Sopel, a former North America editor for the BBC, wrote on Twitter, “This is an awful and shocking episode, where there was no criminality, but perhaps a complicated private life. That doesn’t feel very private now.”
Source : Nytimes
