SARAH VINE on Huw Edwards: The worst-kept secret in the country is finally out

The worst-kept secret in the country is finally out. In a shock statement, the wife of Huw Edwards – the hitherto anonymous presenter at the centre of allegations of sexual misconduct – has named him. 

Vicky Flind, a respected TV producer who works on ITV’s Peston show, broke cover late this afternoon, sending shockwaves through the BBC and beyond.

Edwards’s name had been one of the many swirling around the internet over the past few days. Almost everyone working in the media knew he was the individual accused of soliciting indecent images from a vulnerable teenager in return for money – allegedly £35,000 – which the youngster then used to fund a drug addiction.

For legal reasons, we couldn’t say it or print it – but we knew it. As, of course, did all those other BBC presenters whose names were dragged through the mud on Twitter and social media. 

That is why they were all – rightly – so incensed at the BBC’s apparent inaction in either revealing the identity of the accused, or even issuing a statement clearing their names. 

Vicky Flind, a respected TV producer who works on ITV’s Peston show, broke cover late this afternoon (pictured together in 2018)

What Flind has done – identifying her own husband and finally putting an end to the malicious speculation – is therefore not only extremely courageous, it is also exemplary from a moral point of view.

She has taken the decision to put a lot of people out of their misery, while inevitably drawing attention to her own – and that of her five children with Edwards. I can only imagine what they, and she, are going through.

It is important to stress that in no way does her statement count as an admission of her husband’s guilt: she is merely confirming that he is the person accused. And Scotland Yard has dropped its probe into the allegations, saying that as far as the police are concerned, no crime has been committed.

But even if no criminality has taken place, the fact remains that the idea of Edwards – that self-styled beacon of upright BBC journalism – allegedly soliciting images of young people speaks of a worrying hypocrisy, and is entirely at odds with someone of his standing.

As well as the original allegations, he has subsequently been accused of breaking stay-at-home lockdown rules to meet another young person, sending messages to a 17-year-old with love hearts and kisses and sending threatening messages to a person in their early twenties whom he met on a dating app.

Of course, it may turn out that none of these things happened. But there is a sharp contrast between these claims and the public image of the man who led the nation for the televised coverage of the late Queen’s funeral – not to mention the wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Diamond Jubilee, the death of Prince Philip and the Coronation of King Charles. 

Huw Edwards has been our upright companion for the BBC’s flagship 10 o’clock news for as long as many of us can remember.

No wonder, as Flind said in her statement, Edwards is ‘suffering from serious mental health issues’ and is receiving ‘in-patient hospital care where he’ll stay for the foreseeable future’.

Huw Edwards has been our upright companion for the BBC’s flagship 10 o’clock news for as long as many of us can remember 

Unless he can prove to the public that these allegations are wholly false, it’s hard to see how there could be a way back for him.

His wife spoke in her statement of his battle with depression over the years, perhaps as a way of trying to mitigate the situation. And one does always have sympathy for anyone battling a serious mental health condition. But the problem for Edwards – and, by extension, the BBC – is that he was to a large extent the Corporation’s mouthpiece.

This is not some flighty Radio 1 DJ we’re talking about here: this is the man who succeeded David Dimbleby, the last in a long line of venerated BBC greats. It’s an unconscionable prospect.

It’s also a terrible shame.

As it is, his life’s work and reputation are in jeopardy. And yet again, the public’s belief in the integrity of those who hold such exalted positions of power has been shaken to its core.