With Huw Edwards in hospital with “serious mental health issues” and facing no further action by police, the newspaper that broke the story is now under the spotlight.
The Sun is facing questions over its coverage of allegations against the 61-year-old newsreader – with some asking whether the claims should have been reported at all.
After Edwards’s wife Vicky Flind publicly named him and police said there was no evidence of criminal offences on Wednesday evening, the paper released its own statement, stating it had “no plans to publish further allegations”.
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Described as a “very carefully crafted legal statement” by former Mirror editor Paul Connew, it said: “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.”
The words are strictly true as there was no reference to any police involvement or allegations that a specific crime was committed when the story was broken in Saturday’s paper.
However, it did originally report that a “top BBC star is off air while allegations he paid a teenager for sexual pictures are being investigated”, “the well-known presenter is accused of giving the teen more than £35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid images” and “sleazy messages are alleged to have started in 2020, when the youngster was 17”.
While the legal age of consent in the UK is 16, it is a crime to make or possess indecent images of anyone under 18, and the details prompted speculation from other news organisations about whether the allegations could amount to a potential crime.
The Sun correctly recognises this in its statement, which said: “Suggestions about possible criminality were first made at a later date by other media outlets, including the BBC.”
The Sun on Sunday carried a comment from former Home Secretary Priti Patel that the BBC “must cooperate with the police if they are contacted to investigate”.
A story on the paper’s website published the same day was headlined “BBC SEX PROBE Top BBC star who ‘paid child for sex pictures’ could be charged by cops and face years in prison, expert says”.
The piece reported comments made by former chief crown prosecutor Nazir Afzal to the Times – which is owned by the same company as The Sun – that the presenter could potentially be charged with sexual exploitation under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
By Monday, when the Metropolitan Police said it was “assessing information” supplied by the BBC, the headline on the paper’s spread read “At Last, BBC Calls in the Cops – Politicians furious over delay”.
The story in the next day’s Sun repeated the claim that the young person’s mother had said “the household name star paid her child more than £35,000 for sordid images, starting when they were 17”.
The Sun’s original story
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This time it was followed by: “Under the Protection of Children Act it is a criminal offence to make, distribute or possess an indecent image of anyone under 18.
“The Met Police were last night assessing the allegations.”
Wednesday’s paper carried fresh allegations that Edwards – who was still not named – sent “creepy” messages to a different 17-year-old and broke lockdown rules to meet them, while Thursday’s splash, with Edwards now named by his wife, made clear: “Cops said they had found no evidence her husband had committed any crime.”
The Independent Press Standards Organisation, the UK’s newspaper and magazine regulator, said on Thursday the “complex, fast-moving and very serious story” had attracted around 80 complaints, adding: “We are watching the developments carefully.”
Mr Connew told Sky News that Edwards could potentially take legal action because The Sun’s original story “did suggest” an offence might have taken place, even though he wasn’t identified.
David Yelland, who was editor of the paper from 1998 to 2003, tweeted: “The Sun inflicted terror on Huw despite no evidence of any criminal offence.
“This is no longer a BBC crisis, it is a crisis for the paper.”
Allegations were ‘rubbish’
And Jon Sopel, former North America editor of BBC News, called the scandal “an awful and shocking episode” and said the presenter’s “complicated private life” does not “feel very private now”.
The Sun had already faced criticism after the lawyer representing the young person dismissed the initial allegations as “rubbish” in a letter to the BBC on Monday, telling the broadcaster a denial had been sent to the paper on Friday evening.
There was no reference to the apparent denial in the original coverage of the story.
But The Sun has defended its journalism, reporting that the young person’s parents approached the paper – “making it clear they wanted no payment” – after becoming “frustrated” that Edwards remained on air and was still allegedly sending money after they complained to the BBC on 19 May.
“The allegations published by The Sun were always very serious. Further serious allegations have emerged in the past few days,” the paper’s statement said.
“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.”
Story ‘still legitimate’
Adam Boulton was among senior media figures to defend the paper for covering the story in the face of a “lot of recriminations”.
Speaking to The Take with Sophy Ridge, he said: “I would take the counter view… people such as yourself, such as ourselves, on television who hold others to account for their behaviour have to be prepared to be held accountable for behaviour – not just criminality.
“There’s a lot of careers ended a long way short of criminality because it was felt that they were bringing the organisation which they represented into disrepute.”
Boulton said most people would see it as “fairly reprehensible” for a man in his 60s to pay large amounts of money to a young person for illicit material, and to phone the youth threatening them afterwards – claims which were made against Edwards.
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Neil Wallis, former deputy editor of The Sun, also backed the tabloid, telling Sky News: “They broke a story of massive public interest. They handled it with, as far as I can see, discretion.
“They gave desperate parents an opportunity to stop what they saw as a terrible thing.”
Speaking to Sky News, the former chief executive of ITN Stewart Purvis said the story is “still legitimate” but argued The Sun should have run the young person’s denial.
He said the story poses some “big questions for journalism”, and asked whether it is legitimate for other news organisations to repeat the allegations or make their own investigations.
The BBC had its own story that another young person felt “threatened” by messages they received from its then unnamed presenter and aired further allegations from one current and one former BBC worker, who said they had received “inappropriate messages” from Edwards, after he had been named.
“I don’t think it’s for broadcasters to point the finger at newspapers or vice versa. All of journalism has to ask itself some quite awkward questions this morning,” said Mr Purvis on Thursday.
