BBC presenter Huw Edwards has resigned from the corporation after receiving “medical advice” from his doctors.
“Huw Edwards has today resigned and left the BBC,” the corporation said in a statement on Monday. “After 40 years of service, Huw has explained that his decision was made on the basis of medical advice from his doctors. The BBC has accepted his resignation which it believes will allow all parties to move forward. We don’t believe it appropriate to comment further.”
The news broke in early July 2023 that a top BBC presenter was facing allegations of paying a teenager for sexually explicit photographs, later revealed to be Edwards.
Edwards’ wife, Vicky Flind, issued a statement on July 12 saying Edwards was suffering “serious mental health issues” and had been hospitalized. “As is well documented, he has been treated for severe depression in recent years,” she said. “The events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters.”
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A review of the BBC’s non-editorial complaints process was commissioned last year in the wake of the scandal, which identified shortcomings in the corporation’s process. It was led by BBC Group COO Leigh Tavaziva and Deloitte, under the direction of Simon Cuerden.
Tavaziva had said in the report: “Although our existing processes and systems are, on the whole, working effectively, this review shows that we need to join them up better to ensure no matter how a non-editorial complaint comes into the BBC it is escalated swiftly, when needed, and dealt with by the right people. Where the review identifies process improvements we accept those in full, and we are delivering on an action plan with a number of enhancements already in place. The report identifies specific process shortcomings in the presenter case. The initial complaint in this case was not escalated quickly enough to senior management and we have apologized to the complainant for this.”