BBC boss Tim Davie has said he will never see disgraced ex-presenter Huw Edwards working for the BBC again.
“I don’t see that happening for obvious reasons,” he said. “This man has just been convicted of horrendous crimes and it is quite clear to me that I cannot see him working at the BBC again.”
Beleaguered director general Davie made his first public comments the morning after Edwards, once the highest-paid news reporter at the company, was convicted of making indecent images of children. The cache of illegal images, including videos, consisted mainly of children between the ages of 13 and 15, with one believed to be as young as 7 years old and also being abused.
Davie admitted that the scandal had damaged the BBC’s reputation. “There is no doubt that an affair like this damages our reputation, and I don’t yet know what the direct impact on trust will be,” he said. “What I would say is that we monitor it very carefully, we take people very much into account. People’s confidence in the BBC is essential and hopefully we do the right thing and the public are not stupid and they can see when we are taking the right action and acting in good faith and trying to get through things in a calm and peaceful manner . honest way.”
However, that action does not mean that Edwards – who over the course of his 40-year career at the broadcaster became the face of the news service, covering global events including the death of Queen Elizabeth II – was removed from the BBC’s archives .
“We have never completely banned anyone or taken them 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 to manage an archive – I would never say never. There could be a documentary, a contextual piece where we see footage of people who work with us who are, quite frankly, disgraced, that’s how we work. So we have editorial control over that.”
Davie made the comments on Tuesday morning at the Royal Television Society conference in London, where he was interviewed by BBC journalist Amol Rajan.
Even more damaging, the BBC has admitted it continued to pay Edwards, who went on sick leave last summer after an unrelated scandal involving a teenager, until he resigned in April this year, despite the broadcaster’s bosses had been informed that he had been charged in connection with the indecent images last November. Davie defended that decision in his conversation with Rajan.
“We struggled with it. It was an extremely difficult decision,” said Davie. “I think this was the right decision based on current policies. We acted completely in good faith… I think you think about things, you always look at the lessons.”
The BBC is now urging Edwards to pay back £200,000 of his salary. Edwards has not yet agreed. “Discussions are taking place between legal teams, but that’s as far as we can go at the moment,” Davie revealed.
The company has been rocked by a number of scandals in recent months, including allegations of behind-the-scenes harassment on one of its most popular shows, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, and ongoing questions over its coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The BBC boss said a report on ‘Strictly’ investigating the allegations would be published soon.
Davie, who has a marketing background (including at PepsiCo Europe and Procter and Gamble), took on the role of director general in 2020. The role of director general includes both the BBC’s CEO and the editor-in-chief.
Other speakers at this year’s Royal Television Society conference, hosted by Netflix, include sports star David Beckham, culture secretary Lisa Nandy and Netflix boss Ted Sarandos.
