To think this is overkill (Huw Edwards)

[BeachParty]

Don't get me wrong, what he did was heinous.
I don't care how or why you got pics on your phone. 🤢😡. 😥

https://deadline.com/2024/08/doctor-who-episode-huw-edwards-removed-bbc-iplayer-1236029881/

Deleting all reference from someone from fictional shows though seems a bit 😕
It's a character, it's not the real life person.
If we started deleting everyone with problematic/disgusting views, would we be left with any art at all?!

So why didn't the person who sent them get sent to jail?

I don't agree btw, they should be imprisoned, at a minimum

Wealthy white man syndrome

Yes the guidelines exist but for some reason are not consistently followed in reality. As is evident from the man who sent them to HE and the other examples on this thread.

Doesn’t matter whether he viewed them or not - he should have gone to the police as soon as he realised what they were, but he kept them. Regardless of that, it’s beyond disgusting that HE corresponded with a teenager and paid him to get sexually explicit photos of young people, whatever their age. He perpetuated their exploitation.

So if the person sending you a photo of a seven year old is being raped is an adult, in your mind that makes it okay?

I googled 'suspended sentence' and 'category a images' and there are endless recent examples from the last month or so @Hummingbird75

www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/crime/blyth-man-gets-suspended-sentence-after-indecent-images-of-children-found-on-his-computer-4507512

www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ng9ljv436o.amp

pembrokeshire-herald.com/91468/suspended-sentence-for-distribution-and-possession-of-child-abuse-images/

www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/24231671.colchester-man-24-downloaded-child-abuse-images-court-hears/

www.edp24.co.uk/news/24474265.lowestoft-man-given-suspended-sentence-indecent-images/

www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/telford/2024/01/23/man-who-had-over-160000-images-of-children-handed-a-suspended-prison-sentence/

www.wigantoday.net/news/crime/suspended-sentence-for-wigan-man-who-had-library-of-indecent-child-images-4580309

www.eadt.co.uk/news/24398700.suspended-sentence-monstrous-east-bergholt-paedophile/

I'm really pleased you've never seen someone walk free (with a SS) with 40 images but many of the above had hundreds and still got a suspended sentence.

If you work in this space and say you are 100% sure someone will be given an custodial sentence, not a suspended sentence, it's very surprising. It's not uncommon at all, despite the sentencing guidelines.

@EatingTillIDie if you mean the one who's parents went to the sun he was a teenager at that time
Otherwise homophobia doesn't come into it and you know this

How utterly depressing.

Isn't it just @Naunet

I was shocked how common a suspended sentence is for this crime.

Terrifying and depressing.

None of the nonce sympathisers have answered my questions at all- if he was only interested in perfectly legal above board material why was he in a WhatsApp chat with someone who knew was a paedo?

Would you let him look after your 7 year old child? No, me neither.

So, What were your points?

I posted earlier on in the thread and one of the points I made was about how we excuse men who are pedophiles, who sexually assault women and children- if the man is famous. Not only do we (as a society) excuse them, we tolerate them, ignore their behaviours, laud them, support them, are happy for our children to idolise them and we pay a fortune to watch them play football/music/dance/act and, in one case, we vote for them as President of the US.

This is a really complex issue and we need to look at how, as a society, we help create these people, sometimes as icons in their chosen area. We give them power and allow them to keep it. It protects them. We need to examine our own behaviours .

The BBC haven’t learned anything from the Saville or Harris debacles. They suspended Edwards and continued to pay him a whopping salary for nine months, and then allowed him to resign during a disciplinary procedure.

There are two issues here. The first is that Edwards was suspended in July 2023 when the Sun printed allegations that an unnamed presenter had paid a teenager to obtain sexually explicit photographs for him. Edwards’ wife named him, and said he hands been hospitalised with mental health issues. A full two months before that story was published, the family of the teenager complained to the BBC. The BBC were forced to apologise in February 2024 for the way it had handled those and other complaints. No charges were brought as there was no evidence of anything illegal at that time.

The second issue is that in November 2023, the BBC were advised by the police that Edwards was being investigated in connection with the nature of those images. The BBC deny knowledge of specifics but they knew the serious categorisation. He was allowed to resign in April, in the middle of ongoing disciplinary investigations ‘on the advice of his doctors’. He should have been sacked. IMO he used mental health issues to avoid the consequences of those investigations and to try to mitigate what he knew was coming next.

The number of posters trying to somehow excuse Edwards from being complicit in the sexual exploitation of young people just reinforces the rising double standards on MN.

Ah I see Sorry @LuluBlakey1 I apologise, I am not fully awake yet obviously.

Wow, I think I was asking a pretty fair question in a polite way, what’s with the tone of this response?

In fact, you haven’t even responded to my question. Of course I know the rape and abuse of children is illegal, how in any way does that relate to whether he wanted to witness it?

Reading from subsequent, more polite posts I now understand that he kept them stored on his phone. Didn’t know that was the case, so that (to me personally) confirms that he had bad intentions.

Oh the irony someone who doesn’t think he’s a paedophile despite having 40 class A pictures of kids has the name “fiddle” in their name.

Dubbing over HEs voice in one children's programme is not the same as 'erasing all trace of him'. There is no suggestion they're removing / changing non children's tv. And it's further massive reaching to suggest the actions taken for a convicted paedophile and a children's tv programme somehow create a slippery slope for erasing 'wrongthink'.

The BbC is already massively biased towards paedophiles e.g
Describing minor prostituted children/ child sexual abuse victims as ' sex workers', routinely spreads misinformation (e.g. recently about the controversy in women's boxing where most of their reporting is flat wrong,) and excludes journalists who don't follow their party line e.g. Hannah Barnes. So if you're worried about bias there are much bigger things to worry about.

And maybe his grooming of a younger, vulnerable man wasn't technically illegal but it was immoral and inappropriately using his license fee funded power and the BBC's lack of response to the mother approaching them was also inappropriate and wrong.

Yes, it is precisely because the BBC seem to think that they can do whatever they want - is the reason why they should be immediately defunded. The government needs to abolish the BBC TV Licence NOW!

The BBC seems to have forgotten that it is funded by us!

Exactly! If the images were saved before this person even clapped eyes on the computer (and surely you'd have some sort of proof of when you bought it) then they've either got a shit defence team or there's a rabbit off.

Surely if HE was as misunderstood as some posters are claiming he'd be desperate to have his day in court in an attempt to clear his name; he's wealthy enough to be able to afford the very best defence barrister. He hasn't though. He's pleaded guilty.

No he just stored them on his phone for shits n giggles and continued to happily chat to the bloke that sent them to him.

He is absolutely a danger to children.

I have never seen a defendant walk out on a SS for 40 category A images

How about a SS for 3472 images and 1634 videos of Cat A offences? And 5 counts of making indecent images of children himself? The judge felt this man had "suffered enough" apparently. These images and videos made up part of Garling/Davidson's collection of 25000 files of child abuse images

This is just purely my own personal opinion; but I do wonder if HE instantly pleaded guilty, because there could be much worse to follow.

I also wonder now if his MH breakdown when the first story broke was due to the fact that he knew that there was more to come out...

I can thinks of more painful and therfore better punishment for the dirty fucker.