Only at the BBC

[teddyandgypsy]

Barrister to Huw Edwards has just described his client as a man of exceptional character. Astonishing. Such character that when suspended he immediately claimed mental health and went and hid in the Priory, leaving his wife to face the cameras. And did he resign? Well, not for nearly a year, during which time he accepted a £40,000 pay RISE on top of his annual £425,000. Yeah, real character. When he did eventually resign, he it seems to have been prompted by the fact that he had been charged. What a bloke.

Would they have known the charges at that point? Or just that he’d been charged? I’m surprised either way that he strung it out until April to resign when he knew what the charges were.

Can’t work out why the CPS didn’t announce the charges until this week when presumably they had to due to being in court.

@Changingplace he was charged at the end of June.

Before then, the BBC were aware of the arrest in November.

They knew then that he’d been arrested. He wasn’t charged until April this year, after he’d already left the BBC. Some people who are arrested, aren’t necessarily guilty of anything, and that would be the BBC’s take on it, with regard to Edwards’ employment with them, I imagine.

Look I am not defending Huw Edwards, but the BBC have to follow their own procedures. It appears they knew he was arrested but no charges had been brought -

Delivering its first statement on the matter days after Edwards was charged, and coming on the day he pled guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court, a BBC spokesperson said it was “made aware in confidence that he had been arrested on suspicion of serious offences and released on bail whilst the police continued their investigation.” This was in November.
“At the time, no charges had been brought against Mr Edwards and the BBC had also been made aware of significant risk to his health,” said the spokesperson, whose note was shared with BBC staff.

I am not sure what you want the BBC to do

The thing everybody is ignoring is that the BBC is one of the premier news organisations in the world. You honestly expect me to believe that all their investigative reporters were asleep on the job?

But if you or a member of your family we're in the dock you would expect the best defence regardless of the accusation?

But if you or a member of your family were in the dock you would expect the best defence regardless of the accusation?

Well yes, that's a fair thing to say but it still wouldn't sit right with me. I take your point though

What did you expect them to do, break into the HR filing cabinet?

They are journalists. Do you not understand that? Absurd.

Not everyone at the BBC is a journalist. It seems the people who knew were not.

And regardless, they probably don’t just sack people who have been arrested in case they are innocent. Also, investigative journalism is by definition a longwinded process - who is to say your concerns aren’t being investigated?

BBC news is independent of the BBC as an organisation, which is why you get this situation of the news department reporting on something else within the organisation.

It’s not absurd, it’s impartiality and the entire organisation isn’t made up of journalists.

The HR department definitely aren’t, and work under the same confidentiality as any HR department, who in any case knew he’d been arrested, but not what he would eventually be charged with.

So do you think BBC journalists should be infiltrating the CPS on the off chance, or finding someone senior enough in that organisation to be aware of the charges yet equally willing to risk their reputation & livelihood by leaking that information (which may be illegal to do, potentially?)

No journalists appear to have known about this development until the CPS announcement, BBC or otherwise, do you not think a newspaper or competitor news channel wouldn’t have loved to break this story?

Yes, defendants are entitled to legal representation, but it must be very difficult for the lawyers sometimes. Especially in the worst cases. Not a job that would have ever appealed to me.

Oh well done for stating the obvious! It certainly has more journalists than Tesco. They should have done their job

No journalists anywhere knew about the charges until the CPS made an announcement on Monday.

A more interesting question in my mind is why they decided to wait a month between charging him and making those charges public.

No more asleep than journalists working for any other organisation (channel 4 news, various papers etc).

They didn’t know about it? Not sure what more you want anyone to say. BBC News is now covering it.

If someone doesn’t have a fair trial it will collapse and they will walk free. Abhorrent as it may feel the defence have to do their job otherwise it isn’t a fair trial

Yes, fair point

"They are journalists. Do you not understand that? Absurd."

The BBCs HR department is made up of journalists? Now that's absurd

i’m not au fait with employment law but given the combination of the massive salary and reputational damage that was involved, that if the BBC had the grounds on which to terminate his employment then they would have done so.

I assume that their hands were tied until the point at which he was charged.

People will inevitably conspire around whether he had friends in high places etc but given the damage it does to the BBC which is perennially facing existential threat, I don’t believe any amount of friends and influence would have stopped him being thrown under the bus if they had the chance.

“Thrown under the bus” is probably the wrong turn of phrase as it suggests being unfairly scapegoated - obviously morally he didn’t deserve to be continuing to be paid a handsome sum given what we now know but it doesn’t follow that legally there was any scope to act earlier.

@4fingerKitKat I agree. They'll have known how bad it would look, and how their position is increasingly under threat. If they could have avoided giving people another reason to criticise them and the licence fee, I can't see why they wouldn't have done so.

BBC News impartial 🤣