‘Outrage!’ Carole Malone fumes at ‘vilification’ of press over reporting of Huw Edwards scandal: ‘BBC have form for this’

Carole Malone has hit out at the “vilification” of reports originally bringing to light allegations facing Huw Edwards after he plead guilty in court.

The Daily Express columnist and Andrew Pierce said individuals like commentator Owen Jones, presenter Emily Maitlis and former Sun editor David Yelland are guilty of wrongly lambasting reports regarding Edwards’s misdemeanours.

The Sun originally published a story in July 2023 about Edwards being suspended by the BBC as he was at the centre of a scandal over payments to a young person for sexually explicit images.

His name was not revealed in the original report, but after days of mounting speculation, his wife confirmed in a public statement that Edwards was the man in question.

A year on, Edwards has admitted to accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven.

“The Sun is the hero of this piece and the BBC is the villain”, she said.

“The police would not have pursued these allegations had it not been for The Sun’s story.”

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Ceri Dingle from WORLDwrite said the tabloid was “completely vilified” as a result of its reporting.

“There was still so much fear because his name might come out but everyone knew who it was”, she said.

GB News’s Andrew Pierce commented: “Owen Jones said: ‘The Sun is a disgusting rag. They have to pay for what they have done for Huw Edwards. They are trying to destroy someone’s life with false claims of illegality’.”

Malone pointed out other names who she says are guilty of wrongly vilifying the press, saying: “There was Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and David Yelland.”

Dingle added: “One of the problems we have is this privacy which isn’t actually law.

“The Sun was clearly made a decision by itself not to reveal the name even though it wasn’t a legal requirement.”

Malone went on to question why Edwards was still the broadcaster’s highest-paid newsreader after his name was released, which she feels the BBC should have done themselves.

“If the BBC had any sense of responsibility, they would have named him”, she said.

“In the end it was his wife who named him. They’re coming out with all this tosh now that they had to give him this pay rise, no they didn’t.

“They have form for hiding the perverted behaviour of their staff.”

Westminster Magistrates’ Court was told seven of the 41 indecent images sent to the veteran broadcaster by the unnamed male were of the most serious type.

The final indecent image was sent in August 2021, a category A film featuring a young boy, with the man telling the newsreader the child was “quite young looking” and that he had more images which were illegal.

Edwards told him not to send any illegal images, the court was told in a 26-minute hearing.

In a statement, a BBC spokesperson said: “At the time, no charges had been brought against Mr Edwards and the BBC had also been made aware of significant risk to his health.

“In the end, at the point of charge he was no longer and employee of the BBC.”