Huw Edwards

[Aquarius1234]

To think he shouldn't have been paid in full while off long term. As its more like being self employed.
But mainly cos it was 475k upwards of our TV licence money!
Another example is when a famous radio presenter s decide to go off for an extended break to film another show or something. Surely they don't get normal pay when they have extra weeks off not on air!!

Well he pleased guilty so that's usually quite a good indicator

@Naunet some of these charges are separate from what was initially alleged. I assume when the police checked his technology they then found these images

I think I'm more flabbergasted at how much these "stars" are being paid from our licence fee money. I'd happily never watch BBC ever again if I didn't have to pay the licence fee.
All he is, is a guy reading the news from a teleprompter. I'll happily dress up and read the news for half of what he was on... there ya go, BBC, I'll save you some money.

Yet he's pleaded guilty surely that would be a get a out of jail card if there was evidence that he'd asked not for underage images and had deleted any sent?

Is he stupid, did he really think this wouldn't get out one way or another? His poor kids.

He's vile. He willingly communicated with someone who was providing child abuse images, whether asked for or not and continued to do so for a period of time after the first one was received. Anyone with a shred of decency would immediately be contacting the police when that happened the first time. Obviously though if he had reported to police he would have opened himself up to investigation so rather than reporting a provider of child abuse images he decided to save his own skin.

The other thing you have to ask is whether he didn't want illegal images because he was disgusted by their content or because he knew that he would be in trouble if he was caught with them. If the provision of these images hadn't been illegal would he have still told his contact not to send them? I don't think we can be sure of whether the first or second scenario was actually the case here.

Nah cats are a better bet. Take no shit and very difficult.to pull the wool over their eyes 😉

The Times has explained the charges:

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/what-did-huw-edwards-do-category-images-charges-dfpzdzhg8

Making those images is the physical or digital possession of images but most often refers to images that are on an electronic device, such as a phone or computer.

He kept the images.

He had, particularly because of his 'exceptional character', a duty to report the abuse of children and to protect them.

He had the ability to halt the continued sharing of these imagines. He didn't act.

And he continued the relationship with this man. And then recieved further images.

Of course that should be criminal in nature. Its failure to act to protect a child from a clear safeguarding issue.

Those children could potentially be identified from those images that he had.

Good. Hope someone takes a liking to him.

Literally this! Jesus wept, what more do people need to hear?

He has pled guilty to making indecent images of penetrative abuse of children. It is not him receiving them unsolicited.

It is a really difficult case because he appears such a 'nice fella'. I can understand why people defended him when it all came out, but I do think it was fairly obvious that a man in his 60's pursuing a teenager isn't normal, and it was likely an insight into more depraved behaviour being possible so it was wise to reserve judgement before defending him. And that includes the BBC.

I am a little angry that there was a total media blackout on this case. No reports, him being completely protected from media scrutiny as soon as he played the mental health card. I don't think that is acceptable.

I didn't understand that he kept the images and received them over an extended time period. For some reason I thought he got a massive dump of images and requested no more of children be sent.

It’s probably quite complex and without all the details we can only infer from what we have been given:

For HE to be asking for material from a middle man means he was already looking for something specific and explicit. Access to porn and young looking adult pornography is freely available - why did he have ‘a guy’ if he wasn’t looking for something more dubious? So on the assumption he was asking for ‘very young men’ the sender could then send him (as has been seen) a large collection of materials, some which is obviously illegal. HE evidently thought he could cover himself once he had received the illegal pictures by saying ‘no more of those’. But he’s still culpable because he asked for certain explicit photos which he kept on his phone and didn’t report further.

It seems he thought he found a loophole in his perversions, evidently he has not.

According to the BBC article, the allegations last year about him paying for images from a teenager are separate to the charges he has pleaded guilty to.

At the time of the first allegations, I think the police did an initial investigation and found no evidence of criminality. He was then arrested in November over the latest charges (not sure what led to this).

"So in law, how can he be guilty if he didn't solicit the pics?"

That's because this offence is a "strict liability" offence. What this means is that you don't have to have any criminal intent. Simply being in possession is enough.

It's like with drugs, simply being in possession of controlled drugs is an offence but the more serious offence of something like "intent to supply" needs to show an intention to actually supply.

Many people, some on the site, were defending him paying young men, one very definitely vulnerable and in his teens, for sexual favours. Anyone pointing out that financially coercing a teenage drug addict into sexual activity was abusive and a giant red flag was labelled homophobic or cruel to a mentally unwell person. We really need to learn that claiming a particular identity should not place someone above scrutiny or criticism, because so many people (mainly men) exploit society's desire not to be seen as discriminatory. Groups such as the Paedophile Information Exchange tacked themselves onto the gay rights movement as a deliberate tactic.

I'm not a BBC basher but I am often critical of them as an organisation. They need to answer why they did nothing when the parents of a young drug addict asked them to help stop the guy who was the face of national events giving their son money for sexual favours. They need to introduce clauses in contracts that mean they don't have to hands large amounts of public money to someone who has brought disgrace upon them as an employer.

I am an Owen Jones basher so it's nice to see his instincts on this were as sharp as ever. You can bet your life if it had been Piers Morgan or Eamonn Holmes (neither of them people I like) caught contacting young men he would have been denouncing them all over the internet. It's all become about supporting the people in your political tribe, not doing what is right.

The BBC articles explains the offense and what it covers.

It does include receiving them unsolicited in certain circumstances. Its about the failure to take action that is the problem. You don't have to 'make' them despite the wording.

The issue is they feature children at risk. A failure to act to protect children at risk is the issue here. Those images are of real children who may be identifiable. Where is this guy getting them from? They could potentially trace and prosecute all involved and remove the children from that situation. They can't if you just keep the images and keep your mouth shut.

Had he received unsoliticted and reported immediately the police wouldn't prosecute, because they would understand he was potentially being set up.

And why would you continue to stay in touch with the same person? And get MORE images from them under these circumstances???

It can mean him receiving them unsolicited. Making doesn’t mean that he took the images, it means he opened /downloaded them. A copy of the image was created on his device by downloading the image sent.

His real crime is not immediately going to the police and reporting the the person sending this images. He continued in contact with that person and gave no thought to the protection of vulnerable children from criminal exploitation.

And as it involves WhatsApp, you don’t even have to click to open an attachment with a photo. It’s right there.

It seems our old friend Owen Jones is still trying to defend his original position over on Twitter. He really is something else 🙄. Of course it’s bloody dodgy that a 60 year old man is soliciting sex from a very young, vulnerable person. It’s hidden amongst a million retweets about the Isreal war on Gaza though so evidently not wanting to draw too much attention to his past views on it.

My understanding is there are actually organisations out there that can help with men who feel paedophilic proclivities. If I remember correctly there is at least one organisation that runs a helpline. Why don't these people seek help before they get themselves in deep trouble?

I think it's because he started messaging, exchanging photos and paying money to a 17 year old boy (the one whose parents asked the BBC and the police for help and ended up going to the media) and people were speculating that he had been charged over the nude selfies, etc. this teenager had sent him.

@RedToothBrush Yes, thanks. I wasn't aware that it could be that it was unsolicited.

Strange I've never received 'unsolicited' child rape pictures.

You'd think at the most basic level that paedophiles are slightly cautious about who they send them to...

There are probably two things going on here.
He paid the teenager money for grubby photos and sounds as if other things were sent on to him, but he didn't report it because he didn't want to be found out for the former.
Happy to be corrected , but he did part with thousands originally ( as reported in the news)

A long time ago the organisation I work for had a radio advert to promote something for carers. We were advised that while we could have one of us do the voiceover they strongly recommended we use a professional - and they were right, it made a huge difference. Being able to speak well in the way needed is absolutely a skill. A newsreader shouldn't be displaying their personality, they are there to deliver the news, not their opinion or feelings on it.

Huw Edwards was a good news reader. Also a terrible human being.