Huw Edwards leaves BBC on medical advice

TV news presenter Huw Edwards has resigned from the BBC on “medical advice”, the corporation has said.

The broadcaster has been off air since last July following newspaper reports claiming he paid a young person for sexually explicit images.

He was the BBC’s most high-profile news anchor, often chosen to front coverage of major national events.

“Huw Edwards has today resigned and left the BBC,” a short statement said 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.”

His departure comes nine months after his wife said he had been admitted to hospital with “serious mental health issues”.

Police did not take action against him, saying there was no evidence that a criminal offence had been committed.

The allegations arose when the Sun newspaper claimed an unnamed BBC presenter had paid a young person for explicit photos.

The paper’s source was the mother and step-father of the young person, but a letter issued on the young person’s behalf by a lawyer described their account as “rubbish”.

The paper and the BBC also reported several further claims of inappropriate behaviour, and the BBC launched an internal investigation.

On Monday, the mother of the young person told The Sun her family had been suffering “immensely for nearly a year”.

“In [Edwards] resigning we are worried we won’t get the answers we so desperately need,” she added.

“If Huw has been found to have done something wrong no action can be taken against him.”

After days of speculation about the presenter’s identity, Edwards’s wife Vicky Flind publicly named him last July.

She said she was doing so primarily out of concern for his mental wellbeing and to protect their children, and that he had been treated for severe depression in recent years.

In February, the BBC apologised for the way it handled the original complaint, made by the young person’s family to the corporation last May, two months before the Sun ran its story.

Edwards, 62, has not publicly commented. He had been off air since July.

The normal policy is that an employee receives full pay while suspended. He was the corporation’s highest-paid newsreader, receiving between £435,000 and £439,999 in the year 2022/2023.

The BBC has confirmed that Edwards has not been paid off as part of his departure.

The Welsh presenter joined BBC News as a trainee in 1984, and in 2003 became one of the main presenters on BBC One’s Ten O’Clock News, widely seen as the corporation’s flagship bulletin.

He also presented and commentated on events like general elections and royal weddings and funerals, and announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II to the nation in 2022.