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Former BBC journalist Huw Edwards has been charged with making indecent images of children, London’s Metropolitan police has said.
The veteran news presenter, who resigned from the BBC in April after a career spanning four decades, was arrested by the Met police in London last November. He was charged on June 26.
He faces three counts relating to alleged offences involving indecent images shared on a WhatsApp chat between December 2020 and April 2022 and will appear in Westminster magistrates’ court on Wednesday.
A Met police spokesperson said: “Huw Edwards, 62, of Southwark, London, has been charged with three counts of making indecent images of children following a Met police investigation.”
“The offences, which are alleged to have taken place between December 2020 and April 2022, relate to images shared on a WhatsApp chat,” the spokesperson added.
Edwards, who was the BBC’s best-paid news reader, was at the centre of a media frenzy last summer after reports emerged about alleged relationships that an unnamed BBC presenter had pursued with young people.
His wife, Vicky Flind, eventually confirmed the identity of the presenter at the centre of the allegations as her husband, and said he was suffering from serious mental health issues.
Edwards, who presented the BBC’s flagship News at Ten for two decades was hospitalised last summer in the wake of the scandal. Police initially concluded that he had not broken any laws.
The BBC has faced questions over how it managed the affair, and whether it should have done more to investigate the allegations made about Edwards earlier.
The BBC apologised to the family of the young person at the centre of the allegations involving Edwards after a review into the effectiveness of its non-editorial complaints processes.
The review conducted by Deloitte showed the need for greater consistency across the BBC in how complaints are processed.
