A London court has given the disgraced former BBC News anchor Huw Edwards a suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to paying a convicted pedophile to send him explicit images of children.
Edwards must attend 25 rehabilitation sessions and a sex offender program.
Edwards was the highest-paid broadcaster at the BBC and had the distinct honor of announcing the news of Queen Elizabeth II's passing and covering King Charles III's coronation live. In his role as the lead anchor for the BBC's News at Six and the BBC's flagship News at Ten, his stature was comparable to that of Walter Cronkite in the United Kingdom.
And he knew it.
Mediaite's David Gilmour reports:
In July Edwards pleaded guilty to possessing 41 indecent images of children sent as he engaged in online chats with a convicted pedophile on WhatsApp. Between December 2020 and August 2021 the man sent him a total of 377 sexual images, some featuring children as young as seven. Seven of the images shared were deemed the most serious categorization of material.
Edwards paid the man up to £1,500 during this time, although he claimed in his defense that he “did not make payments in order for images to be sent to him.” Edwards also said that he “positively told” the pedophile to stop sending him sexual images of children. He told the court that he “did not gain any gratification” from the illegal images.
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring reminded the journalist at Monday's hearing that he was “very highly regarded by the public” before his crimes became public.
“Your long-earned reputation is in tatters,” the judge added.
Edwards was suspended in July 2023 when allegations regarding his conduct first surfaced; however, he receive $264,000 from the publicly-funded broadcaster while investigations were ongoing.
The Sun, a British tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, broke the story after speaking to an unnamed boy's mother. She claimed that Edwards coughed up $45,000 for images starting in 2020 when the alleged victim was 17.
The tabloid did not reveal Edwards' identity at the time, only saying that they were a “household name” in Great Britain. Edwards initially used his reputation to dismiss the allegations before his identity was revealed.
His wife's eventual confirmation that the allegations were about him ended days of speculation.
“Huw is suffering from serious mental health issues,” a statement from his wife read. “As is well-documented, he has been treated for severe depression in recent years. The events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters; he has suffered another serious episode and is now receiving in-patient hospital care, where he'll stay for the foreseeable future.”
She added that Edwards would respond to the stories once he is “well enough to do so” and said he is “deeply sorry that so many colleagues have been impacted by the recent media speculation.”
Before the revelations, many believed that the Welsh newsman was under consideration to receive the honorary title of knighthood.
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