Huw Edwards, Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris: BBC Struggles with Misbehaving Stars

uk - The conditional prison sentence of former BBC presenter Huw Edwards comes as a relief for the state broadcaster. However, criticisms persist. The national broadcaster is seen as protecting its stars for too long.

The conditional prison sentence of former BBC presenter Huw Edwards comes as a relief for the state broadcaster. However, criticisms persist. The national broadcaster is seen as protecting its stars for too long.

Rarely has the reputation of one of the country's leading news presenters fallen as quickly as in the case of Huw Edwards. The presenter of BBC's flagship ten o'clock news last year provided the majority of commentary during the coronation of King Charles III. Just a few months later, he was persona non grata after it was revealed that he had paid minors for sexual exploits.

This wasn't the end of it. Later that year, Edwards was arrested for possession of child pornography, for which he received a six-month suspended prison sentence on Monday. The BBC had been aware of the arrest since November last year but continued to pay his salary of almost six figures in euros.

Only when Edwards' arrest was made public earlier this summer did the BBC attempt to recover some of his remaining salary. It should be noted that Edwards has not been employed by the BBC since May this year. It is unclear if he has repaid the requested amounts.

The BBC's mishandling of the Edwards situation fits a long tradition. The most notorious scandal was around the eccentric Jimmy Savile, a longtime presenter of the music program 'Top of the Pops.' After his death in 2012, it was revealed that he had raped underage girls and boys for years, largely within the walls of the BBC.

Not only did the BBC fail to intervene, but it also hindered its own documentaries that sought to expose Savile's questionable behavior. In that sense, there is a similarity to Edwards. The BBC's own documentary makers of the program Panorama were working on a documentary about Edwards around the middle of last year, raising the question of whether his behavior should have been reported to the police.

Since Savile, sex scandals have plagued the BBC. Rolf Harris, a half-artist with his own art program, was found to have abused girls, some as young as eight years old. Harris, who died last year at the age of 93, spent over three years in prison from 2014 after being sentenced to nearly six years.

It wasn't just the BBC feeling ashamed. Even the royal family felt uneasy. Harris had been invited some years earlier to make a portrait of Queen Elizabeth.

In the fall of 2022, an investigation began into Tim Westwood, better known at BBC Radio as DJ Westwood. He is accused of sexually abusing a total of fourteen women. The investigation is ongoing, and Westwood claims innocence.

This cannot be said of BBC1 DJ Chris Denning, also not well-known in the Netherlands like Westwood. In 2016, Denning was sentenced to thirteen years in prison after pleading guilty to the rape of 24 underage girls. One of these rapes had occurred at Jimmy Savile's house, as revealed during the trial.

Where the BBC was slow to condemn stars in its own employ, the broadcaster had no issue condemning others. The arrest of singer Cliff Richard, suspected of sexual offenses, was broadcast live in 2014 after a police tip. Richard was ultimately found not guilty, and the BBC had to pay him damages in the millions.

The BBC continues to struggle with how to handle such scandals. Last month, sports commentator and former footballer Jermaine Jenas was pulled from the studio and fired minutes before the recording of the BBC football program Match of the Day began. A complaint had been received about intimate emails Jenas had sent.