The internal BBC investigation continues into the case involving Huw Edwards , the British public broadcaster's top anchor for over two decades, called not even a year ago to give the island and the world the historic news of the death of 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth II.
The 61-year-old conductor, married and father of 5 children , ended up at the center of the latest suspected sex scandal that hit the channel across the Channel and was suspended from the video.
It all started with an incessant campaign by the Sun (tabloid of the Murdoch group): according to the parents of a 20-year-old boy today, the best-known face of BBC news would have paid tens of thousands of pounds to their son to receive - ever since this one was 17 - sexually explicit photographs . In the wake of this first revelation, he was also brought up for alleged verbal harassment or intimidation by other young men contacted through gay dating sites.
The police - after a preliminary check conducted by Scotland Yard - have excluded for now any need for a criminal investigation or the hypothesis of a crime. The alleged victim of the photo purchase has denied any abuse, contesting what her parents said, in particular about the fact that she had given risqué images to the very popular journalist when she was a minor.
Meanwhile Edwards is currently "in the hospital", his wife has announced : he is dealing with "serious mental health problems" and with forms of "depression" which have worsened in the wake of the press revelations.
However, some British media traditionally hostile to the BBC insist on targeting at least the station's top management, evoking suspicions of a cover-up; in addition to accusing Huw Edwards of behavior "in contradiction with his public image" as a symbolic face of state television.
Edwards, one of the BBC's highest paid journalists, also ranked fourth in the 2023 list just published with an annual salary of around half a million euros , grew up in Wales, graduated from Cardiff University, honorary professor of journalism at the same university , has been considered for a couple of decades a sort of icon and image man of the values that should represent the public service in front of His Majesty's subjects and a worldwide audience.
He is the man who has been entrusted with memorable live broadcasts of national life such as the one dedicated to the death and funeral of Elizabeth or, even earlier, to the weddings of the two sons of the current king, Charles III, that of Prince William with Kate first, and that of the future rebel prince Harry with Meghan then.
(Unioneonline/D)
