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HUW THE GROOMER
Huw Edwards used position of power to groom young people for 6 years even sending pictures from BBC desk to impress them
Edwards faces the prospect of being jailed when he is sentenced next month
HUW Edwards used his position of power at the BBC to groom young people for six years, a shocking Sun dossier reveals.
The disgraced newsreader carried out his seedy activities, including demands for sex pics, even while covering momentous events.
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BBC Director General Tim Davie admitted yesterday that the corporation knew Edwards’ arrest last November was for the most serious category of child abuse images.
He is now facing mounting criticism for not firing their vastly paid star at the time.
In court on Wednesday, Edwards admitted receiving sex abuse videos of children as young as seven.
The 62-year-old faces the prospect of being jailed when he is sentenced next month.
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We handed our dossier on Edwards to the BBC last year to help its investigation after we first exposed how he had received sexual pictures from a vulnerable youngster.
But it continued to pay the News at 10 anchor’s £480,000 licence-fee funded salary until he finally quit in April.
Today we reveal some of its shocking accounts, including:
- HOW Edwards tried to lure a colleague to his BBC-funded hotel room on the day of Prince Philip’s funeral, which was held during Covid restrictions forcing the Queen to grieve alone;
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- A SCHOOLBOY who says he had a “lucky escape” after Edwards messaged him “out of the blue” on Instagram and sent heart emojis;
- HOW the newsreader pinged selfies from Harry and Meghan’s wedding to a young man as he tried to coerce him into sending sexual pictures.
Huw Edwards used position to regularly groom and solicit young people… we have seen evidence of his predatory behaviour
Amid a clamour for a chunk of Edwards’ salary to be returned, Radio 2 host Jeremy Vine yesterday asked how much the BBC knew when they were told about his arrest last November.
He said: “We need to find out if the BBC said, ‘What [were you arrested] for and are you guilty?’
“If he said to them, ‘It’s for these serious offences, but I’m not guilty,’ then I would think you could start to take action to get the money back. Because that clearly is a lie. He’s admitted he’s guilty.
“I don’t know whether the BBC asked him, ‘Are you guilty?’, because you can’t justify paying him beyond November if you know he’s guilty.”
'Big ordeal'
The BBC also reported that an employee who gave evidence to the internal inquiry into Edwards has said they are “disappointed” about the way it was handled.
Last year, the staff member told the BBC they had been sent flirtatious private messages by the presenter which made them feel uncomfortable, and which they considered were an abuse of power.
The unnamed worker said: “I certainly don’t feel like I’ve heard anything of substance about how the investigation went.
"In a way that’s disappointing because it was quite a stressful thing to go through. It was all a big ordeal.”
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