‘Reputational car crash’: insiders rue BBC’s handling of Huw Edwards

For Huw Edwards, once the most trusted newsreader in Britain, now a convicted user of images of the most serious child sexual abuse, the disgrace is total – and nowhere more than in his home country of Wales.

Hours after he pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children as young as seven, a plaque on a building at Cardiff castle commemorating its unveiling by Edwards had already been wrenched off; his voice was also deleted from its guide. He is likely to be stripped of honorary titles at Bangor and Cardiff universities. A mural of the newsreader’s face in his home village of Llangennech, Carmarthenshire has already been painted over by the artist.

For the presenter’s former colleagues at the BBC, however, the issues arising from Edwards’s crimes will not be so easily whitewashed. Inside the broadcaster, sources this week expressed intense disillusionment at BBC senior management and questioned its handling of yet another crisis that many insiders see as partly of the BBC’s own making.

“I think a lot of people are quite numb,” one newsroom source told the Guardian. “We are less bothered by what has happened to Huw Edwards and are more bothered about the absolute reputational car crash we’re now facing.

“Within the building, I think this is the lowest point we could possibly reach, quite simply because the trust in management is so low … it’s an absolute, perfect storm of shit.”

Related: Huw Edwards scandal: the questions facing the BBC

When the Sun first reported last July allegations that a BBC presenter, later named as Edwards, had paid a 17-year-old for images, some colleagues were initially inclined to feel some sympathy. The young person had insisted that nothing illegal or inappropriate had taken place, and police soon concluded there was no criminal case to answer.

Edwards was seen by many as a distant, aloof figure in the newsroom and was thought for years by close colleagues to potentially have a “double life”, according to sources, but they assumed it was none of their business. As accusations began to emerge of predatory behaviour towards younger members of staff, however, many believed his position was untenable, and they waited eagerly for the results of an internal investigation into his conduct and the corporation’s handling of the complaint initially made by the 17-year-old’s parents.

That investigation is still nowhere to be seen. Instead, dropping like a stone on Monday, was the revelation that Edwards was facing extremely serious charges relating to child sexual abuse images, followed by his subsequent guilty pleas. The case, brought after Edwards’s number was found on the phone of a convicted paedophile , came as a “total, total shock” to senior colleagues, according to insiders.

While the BBC can hardly be blamed for Edwards’s crimes, this latest crisis has landed at a time of acute mistrust and anger inside the organisation. Late last month it emerged that despite having been suspended last summer and resigning in April, Edwards had remained the BBC’s third-highest-paid presenter in 2023-4, even receiving a £40,000 pay rise. At the same time, the broadcaster announced 500 redundancies , citing “serious pressure” over its finances.

The revelation this week that the BBC has paid Edwards £200,000 since knowing of his arrest in relation to category A images could scarcely have come at a worse time.

Many employees accept the BBC may have been contractually obliged to keep paying Edwards after his arrest, said the source. “But the question is: how did we get into a position where we’re paying somebody that much money in the first place, and other people so much less?

“I can’t quantify the anger that people feel over pay in this building. There is deep, deep anger and cynicism in the BBC over salaries. It is a massively toxic issue.”

Internal questions over management’s handling of the complaints had also been rebuffed, the source said. “Really, that feels very difficult … The lack of trust between senior management and [staff] is quite extraordinary at the moment.”

Another news source said: “Surely there comes a point between [being arrested in] November and [his resigning in April] where they could have said: ‘You’ve brought the BBC into disrepute already and now you’ve been arrested.’ There was a way of getting rid of him, and him not having that pay rise.

“The problem is the managers have created these big names and big egos. They give them these opportunities, these giant pay packets, which they then can’t take away.”