Huw Edwards: BBC boss Tim Davie denies ‘wholesale banning’ of newsreader footage after scandal
The BBC’s boss has said there has been “no wholesale banning” of footage from the corporation’s archive after the scandal surrounding former newsreader Huw Edwards.
Edwards was named among the BBC’s highest-paid stars in the year 2023-24, despite being off-air since July 2023.
The 62-year-old is due to be sentenced next week after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children at a court hearing earlier this year.
In August, the BBC asked him to hand back the part of his salary, thought to be about £200,000, earned in the five months after he was first arrested.
Director general Tim Davie and BBC chair Dr Samir Shah faced questions from the House of Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee on Tuesday.
Mr Davie said the “standard practice” was to pay suspended employees.
“This affair has not been easy for any of us at the BBC, and particularly for those people who’ve been impacted,” he said.
“But I think it’s absolutely right to look back and reflect and say what are the learnings here. This is standard practice but maybe we should be challenging that.”
Dr Samir Shah and Tim Davie. Pic: PA
A story first emerged in The Sun last year that a then unnamed BBC presenter had allegedly paid a young person for explicit photographs.
Days later, Edwards’ wife named him as the presenter at the centre of the allegations.
Following a separate police investigation, Edwards was arrested and later charged with three counts of making indecent images of children.
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Dr Shah said Edwards had “damaged the reputation” of the BBC.
“I should say, it was a shock to discover, when it was announced, when he was charged, that he had led this double life,” he added.
Mr Davie told the committee he did not think it “appropriate” to make public the BBC’s investigation into the initial allegations.
“If in the process of any disciplinary investigation, we found anything of a very serious nature, or criminal, or anything of that type, we would of course refer it to the police and we’d be in a completely different situation,” he said.
“That is not what came through any of the work we did. We’ve clearly got things progressing outside the workplace, but we’re very clear with regard to where we are within the workplace.”
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The director general said he would “welcome the idea” of looking again at the policy to pay employees during suspension.
“This affair has not been easy for any of us at the BBC, and particularly for those people who’ve been impacted,” he said.
“But I think it’s absolutely right to look back and reflect and say what are the learnings here. [Paying suspended employees] is standard practice but maybe we should be challenging that.”
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
The Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s fourth book has been delayed by her publisher.
It comes amid claims that the author lied about her story in her hit first book. Winn previously described the claims as “highly misleading” and called suggestions that her husband had Moth made up his illness “utterly vile”.
In a statement, Penguin Michael Joseph, said it had delayed the publication of Winn’s latest book On Winter Hill – which had been set for release 23 October.
The publisher said the decision had been made in light of “recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth’s health”, which it said had caused “considerable distress” to the author and her family.
“It is our priority to support the author at this time,” the publisher said.
“With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.”
A new release date will be announced in due course, the publisher added.
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Winn’s first book, released in 2018, detailed the journey she and husband took along the South West Coast Path – familiarly known as The Salt Path – after they lost their family farm and Moth received a terminal health diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD).
But a report in The Observer disputed key aspects of the 2018 “true” story – which was recently turned into a film starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson.
Raynor and husband Moth (centre) with actors Jason Isaacs (L) and Gillian Anderson (R). Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
Experts ‘sceptical of health claims’
As part of the article, published last weekend, The Observer claimed to have spoken to experts who were “sceptical” about elements of Moth’s terminal diagnosis, such as a “lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them”.
In the ensuing controversy, PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD, cut ties with the couple.
The Observer article also claimed the portrayal of a failed investment in a friend’s business wasn’t true, but said the couple – whose names are Sally and Tim Walker – lost their home after Raynor Winn embezzled money from her employer and had to borrow to pay it back and avoid police action.
Anderson played Winn in a movie about the couple’s journey. Pic: Steve Tanner/Black Bear
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It also said that, rather than being homeless, the couple had owned a house in France since 2007.
Winn’s statement said the dispute with her employer wasn’t the reason the couple lost their home – but admitted she may have made “mistakes” while in the job.
“For me it was a pressured time,” she wrote. “It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.”
She admitted being questioned by police but said she wasn’t charged.
The author also said accusations that Moth lied about having CBD/CBS were false and had “emotionally devastated” him.
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty, that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” Winn wrote on her website.
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