Former BBC presenter Huw Edwards asked “any more” after being sent a video of a child aged seven to nine-years-old being sexually abused, a court has heard.
The shamed newsreader, 63, paid up to £1,500 to a university student who was sending him pornographic pictures of young men and indecent images and videos of children being sexually abused.
The vile images and videos were sourced from the Dark Web and sent over WhatsApp in exchanges of messages between 2020 and 2021.
Edwards pleaded guilty in July to three criminal charges relating to 41 illegal images of a child, and appears at Westminster magistrates court to be sentenced on Monday.
He issued an apology to the court and his family, saying he is “profoundly sorry” for his actions.
Prosecutor Ian Hope told the court Edwards had received the material from Alex Williams, a university student who first randomly contacted the newsreader through social media in 2018.
“It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature”, said the prosecutor.
“It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money – low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis – to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.
“Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.”
Mr Hope said the “bulk of the images were sexual images featuring younger-looking adult males, and therefore lawful”, but a “significant minority proportion of the images recovered” featured abuse of children.
The court heard Edwards was sent images in December 2020 of a teenager aged between 14 and 16, and when asked if he wanted more of the same material he replied: “Yes xxx”.
Edwards repeatedly asked for details of the children featuring in the images and videos, and was sent some material on a dropbox link which has not been recovered by police.
Edwards sent £200 to Williams as a Christmas gift so that he could buy a pair of Air Force 1 trainers, after being provided with child abuse images.
In January 2021, Edwards received a file titled “Boys Town Adolescents Presents 13yo”, and the following month he received images featuring a child aged seven to nine and another involving an 11-13-year-old.
Mr Hope said the file was marked as “read” by Edwards, though he did not respond directly. The following week Williams asked: “Is the stuff I’m sending too young for you”.
A few days later, Edwards messaged to say “don’t send underage”, but in August 2021 he was offered “naughty” videos and replied: “Go on”.
Mr Hope said a video was sent, featuring graphic sexual abuse of a boy aged seven to nine, and Edwards “enquires where the video is from”.
The court heard Williams “says an image sharing group on another social media platform which they have both also used, Telegram.
“Alex Williams says the subject is ‘quite yng looking’ to which Mr Edwards responds it ‘can be deceptive’ and asks if he has ‘any more?’
“Alex Williams says he has but he is not sure if Mr Edwards would like them as they are illegal. Mr Edwards says ‘Ah ok don’t’.”
Dressed in a blue cardigan over a white shirt with grey jeans, Edwards arrived in a taxi and dragged a wheelie suitcase into court at shortly after 9am on Monday.
He was whisked past the queue of people waiting to go through security to enter the courthouse, and went straight to a private conference room to meet with his legal team.
Edwards’ barrister, Philip Evans KC, told the court: “Mr Edwards wishes to apologise to the court, he wishes the court to know how profoundly sorry he is.
“He recognises the repugnant nature of such indecent images and the hurt done to those who appear in such images.
“For his part in that, he apologises sincerely and he makes it clear he had the utmost regret. He recognises he has betrayed the priceless trust and faith of so many people.
“He knows he has hurt and damages his family and loved ones around him. And for all of these things, he is truly sorry.”
Mr Evans said the newsreader was suffering from poor mental and physical health when he offended.
“It had an effect on his cognition, the defendant has no memory of actually viewing any particular image”, he said.
“He did not store any of these images on any device, he did not use them for any personal gratification, and he did not gain gratification from indecent images.”
After news of the charges broke, the BBC confirmed it had continued to pay Edwards his annual salary of up to £479,000 between his arrest on child abuse images charges in November last year and his resignation in April.
Last week, the corporation said talks are ongoing, but Edwards is yet to pay back the estimated £200,000 he has been asked to return.
At his first court hearing, it emerged Edwards had been sent two videos and five images in the most serious category of child abuse, with the videos involving children aged between seven and nine-years-old.
Mr Hope said the illegal material was recovered from Williams’ phone when he was arrested for an unrelated matter. No illegal material has been recovered from a phone belonging to Edwards, but his phone used for contact with Williams has not been found.
Among 377 pictures and videos sent by Williams, there were 41 involving children.
In his police interview in April, Edwards told officers of “significant and long-standing mental health struggles for a number of years”, as well as a December 2023 diagnosis of arteriosclerosis.
“He set out that the effect of these conditions includes impact on and impairment of mood, behaviour and judgement”, said Mr Hope.
The prosecutor read out parts of Edwards’ probation report, in which he admitted to a “fixation” on online sexual communication, use of alcohol, the deterioration of his marriage, and struggles to find work after his BBC axing.
Mr Evans said Edwards has lost his good character “in a very public way”, as he set out the former newsreader’s mitigation.
“He did not use his position to commit these offences”, he said.
“Alex Williams sought him out on Instagram, at a time when Mr Edwards can properly be described as vulnerable.”
He added that experts who have assessed Edwards concluded that he was “mentally vulnerable”, while Williams sent many more messages in the relationship than Edwards.
Edwards has split from his TV producer wife Vicky Flind since departing from BBC screens under a cloud, and he is now living away from the family home.
Edwards, who gave his address to the court in Allfarthing Lane in Wandsworth, was first arrested on November 8, 2023 over images allegedly found on a WhatsApp chat, and was charged on June 26 this year.
The Metropolitan Police, which carried out the investigation, and the Crown Prosecution Service which authorised the charges, made no public announcement of the criminal case being brought against Edwards.
But a senior police officer reportedly phoned BBC management two days before Edwards’ first court hearing to tip them off about the case.
Edwards resigned from his BBC newsreader role in April after allegations about his personal life were published in The Sun newspaper.
The scandal involving Edwards began last summer when it was said he had paid £35,000 to a teenager in exchange for sexual images.
Scotland Yard said at the time that it did not believe anything illegal had taken place in relation to those claims.
The BBC commissioned an investigation into its complaints policies and processes, and in February this year it issued an apology to the family of the young person involved.
The corporation said an initial complaint about Edwards had not been properly logged, so that it would be seen by senior management.
Mr Hope told the court on Monday of concerns as a result of medical assessments of Edwards that there is a “significant lifetime risk of relapse”.
“There is a real risk of some or all of the circumstances he himself says led to him being here may arise again in the future”, he said.
“There must be a risk he may seek to view indecent images of children in the future, and a risk of potentially engaging in sexual communication with others.”
When the scandal first broke, Edwards disappeared from screens and his wife issued a statement saying he was “suffering from serious mental health issues” and was receiving hospital care.
Edwards has admitted having seven images of a child in the most serious category A, as well as 12 in category B and 22 in category C.
Edwards, who was born in Bridgend and brought up in Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, joined the BBC as a trainee in 1984.
In four decades at the corporation, he was among the broadcaster’s most recognisable faces, leading coverage of historic events including the late Queen’s funeral in 2022 and most recently the coronation of the King in May 2023.
He also headlined coverage of other major events on the BBC, including the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in2012 and Platinum Jubilee in 2022, the wedding of the then Duke and Duchess ofCambridge in 2011 and the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018.
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring adjourned the case in July for the preparation of a probation report, which would consider possible penalties including a prison sentence.
Williams, now 25, from Merthyr Tydfil, was sentenced in March at Merthyr Tydfil crown court to a 12-month suspended prison sentence.
He had pleading guilty to seven offences related to possessing and distributing indecent images.
