BBC apologises over Huw Edwards sex scandal
The BBC has apologised to the family of the young man at the centre of the sex scandal involving Huw Edwards, after a review found that the corporation mishandled their complaint.
Edwards, who was the BBC’s highest-earning newsreader, was suspended in July last year over a claim that he had paid £35,000 to the man, who was 17 when the alleged relationship began, in exchange for sexually explicit images.
The family contacted the BBC in May to raise their concerns but the complaint was not escalated to senior management.
An independent review, conducted by Deloitte and published on Tuesday, found that “the potential wider significance of this issue for the BBC was not recognised” by the corporate investigations team that received the complaint.
The mother contacted a tabloid newspaper with her claims once her attempts to speak to the BBC failed. The resulting scandal led to Edwards being taken off air in July, and he has not appeared since.
Leigh Tavaziva, the BBC’s group chief operating officer, said: “Although our existing processes and systems are, on the whole, working effectively, this review shows that we need to join them up better to ensure no matter how a non-editorial complaint comes into the BBC it is escalated swiftly, when needed, and dealt with by the right people.
“Where the review identifies process improvements we accept those in full, and we are delivering on an action plan with a number of enhancements already in place.
“The report identifies specific process shortcomings in the presenter case. The initial complaint in this case was not escalated quickly enough to senior management and we have apologised to the complainant for this.”
Failings of the system
The review found that the complaint was not logged on the case management system contemporaneously, “meaning that there was no opportunity for wider visibility of the case within the BBC”.
It also found “insufficient” documentation recording what internal inquiries or searches were carried out at the time by the corporation investigations unit, which tried and failed to contact the family.
The review stated: “There was no documented process for contact with the complainant and/or follow up, such that when initial attempts to contact the complainant were unsuccessful, the steps to be taken were not sufficiently clear and the process followed was not documented.”
When the story of the alleged sex scandal was initially reported, the presenter’s identity was not disclosed, leading to days of speculation.
But Edwards’s wife, Vicky Flind, finally named him in a statement, revealing that he was being treated in hospital for “serious mental health issues”.
The BBC is conducting a second investigation into Edwards’s behaviour. Two police forces concluded that the presenter had no criminal case to answer.
The mother’s husband made the first contact with the BBC on May 18 2023, at the corporation’s Cardiff offices, and was directed to Audience Services.
Audience Services escalated the complaint to corporate investigations on May 19 but it was only referred to the “Specialist Case Management Framework” reserved for serious matters on July 6. The Sun approached the BBC to say it planned to publish the family’s allegations.
A lawyer for the young person at the centre of the allegations told the BBC last year that the mother’s claims to The Sun were “totally wrong and there was no truth in it”. The lawyer added that “nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality”.
