Huw Edwards yet to return £200,000 of salary to BBC, says Tim Davie

Huw Edwards
Huw Edwards earned more than £200,000 between being arrested in November last year and resigning in April - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Huw Edwards is yet to return the £200,000 he was paid by the BBC following his arrest for making indecent images of children.

Tim Davie, the corporation’s director general, told a House of Lords committee on Tuesday that the disgraced former news presenter had not yet complied with a request to return the sum.

Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, also told the committee he believed the corporation needed to conduct a “deep, systematic analysis” of its coverage of Israel and Gaza after allegations of bias.

Edwards, who pleaded guilty to eight charges in July, earned more than £200,000 between being arrested in November last year and resigning in April.

The BBC’s board announced last month that it would try to recover the money after Edwards pleaded guilty at Westminster magistrates’ court.

But Mr Davie told the House of Lords communications and digital committee that Edwards had not yet handed the money over. He said: “No. We’ve made the formal request, and I can’t go into too much detail, but discussions are under way.

“But I’ve got no further news, apart from that the BBC’s position is clear – the money should be returned, and we made the request. I don’t believe we set a deadline… but we do expect to make progress and get an answer.”

Baroness Stowell, who chairs the committee, asked: “And if Mr Edwards is not forthcoming in repaying that money, you have already resolved that you will endeavour to pursue recovery of that money through a legal process?”

“We will explore that,” Mr Davie replied. “But as I’ve said, I think I’ve said on record, that is challenging. I think at the moment the position is very clear. We’ve made that request to Mr Edwards, and that’s where we sit. Our management position is – and supported by the board – is very clear.”

Mr Shah told the committee: “What Huw Edwards did damaged the reputation and the trust for the BBC enormously, so we take that very seriously indeed.

“I should say it was a shock to discover when it was announced that he was charged that he had led this double life. On the face of it, a trusted news presenter, but hidden secretly he was this figure who did the most appalling things. Let’s not forget the victims of this, the children in those pictures.”

Due to be sentenced next month

Edwards, 62, is due to be sentenced on Sept 16. He was suspended by the BBC in July last year following allegations in The Sun newspaper that a senior figure at the corporation had paid a young person for sexually explicit images.

At the time, the Metropolitan Police concluded that no crime had been committed, and told the BBC it could continue its own investigation.

Separately, South Wales Police seized a phone belonging to 25-year-old Alex Williams, from Merthyr Tydfil, who had shared indecent images with Edwards.

Edwards was subsequently arrested on Nov 8. Williams received a suspended prison sentence in March after pleading guilty to seven offences. The following month, Edwards resigned from the BBC, citing “medical advice”.

He was charged in late June, but the Crown Prosecution Service took the unusual step of not informing the media, as is common practice in high-profile cases.

Mr Shah’s remarks about Israel and Gaza coverage came after The Telegraph revealed that a report by Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer, found the corporation breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the height of the Israel-Hamas war.

The report, which revealed “a deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel, analysed four months of the BBC’s output across television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media.

“What the next thematic review issue should be ... I definitely think Middle East conflict is one area I think we should consider very seriously to be subject to a deep, systematic analysis of how we cover it,” he said.

“In my time, and I’ve been in it for 40 years, this is one thing that has really resulted in lots and lots of concern on all sides and I think it’s the duty of the BBC Board, because we play such a role in reporting Middle East conflict to the world, that we do take time out and do an analysis review of that coverage.”

Thematic reviews are independent analyses of an area of BBC output that take between one and two years to complete. They have previously assessed coverage of migration and taxation.