BBC Boss Tim Davie Says Huw Edwards Won’t Work for Broadcaster Again: ‘He’s Been Convicted of Appalling Crimes’
BBC boss Tim Davie has said he can’t ever see disgraced ex anchor Huw Edwards working for the BBC again.
“I can’t see that happening for obvious reasons,” he said. “This man has just been convicted of appalling crimes and it’s pretty straightforward in my mind that I can’t see him working at the BBC again.”
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Beleaguered director general Davie made his first public remarks the morning after Edwards, once the highest paid news reporter at the corporation, was sentenced for making indecent images of children. The cache of illegal images, which included videos, were predominantly of children aged between 13 and 15 with one believed to feature as young as 7 also being abused.
Davie admitted the scandal had damaged the BBC’s reputation. “There’s no doubt that an affair like this impacts our reputation and I don’t know yet in terms of the direct impact on trust,” he said. “What I would say is we track it very carefully, we’re very mindful of people. People’s trust in the BBC is essential and hopefully we’ll do the right thing and the public aren’t stupid and they can see when we’re taking the right action and acting in good faith and trying to get through things in a calm and fair manner.”
That course of action will not involve obliterating Edwards — who over the course of his 40-year career at the broadcaster became the face of its news service, reporting on global events including the death of Queen Elizabeth II — from the BBC’s archive however.
“We never completely banned and ripped someone out of the archives,” Davie said. “What we do — and I think we have a lot of experience with this — I’m not just talking about scandals, I’m also talking about how you manage an archive — I would never say never. There may be a documentary, a contextual piece where we’re seeing images from people working with us who have been frankly disgraced, that’s how we operate. So we’re having editorial control of that.”
Davie made the remarks at the Royal Television Society conference in London on Tuesday morning, where he was being interviewed by BBC journalist Amol Rajan.
More damagingly, the BBC has admitted it continued to pay Edwards, who went on sick last summer leave following an unrelated scandal involving a teenager, until April of this year when he resigned, despite bosses at the broadcaster being made aware he had been charged in relation to the indecent images last November. Davie defended that decision in his conversation with Rajan.
“We wrestled with it. It was an extremely tough decision,” said Davie. “I think it was the right decision based on the current policy, we acted totally in good faith…I think you reflect on things, you always look at learnings.”
The BBC is now urging Edwards to return ￡200,000 of his salary. Edwards has not yet agreed. “There’s discussions between legal teams but that’s as far as we can go at this point,” Davie divulged.
The corporation has been rocked by a number of scandals over recent months, including allegations about harassment behind the scenes at one of its most popular shows, “Strictly Come Dancing,” and continued questioning over its reporting of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The BBC boss said a report on “Strictly,” investigating the allegations, is forthcoming.
Davie, who comes from a marketing background (including stints at PepsiCo Europe and Procter and Gamble) took on the role of director general in 2020. The director general role includes CEO of the BBC as well as its editor in chief.
Other speakers at the Royal Television Society conference, which this year is hosted by Netflix, include sports star David Beckham, culture secretary Lisa Nandy and Netflix boss Ted Sarandos.
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