Huw Edwards, as soon as the broadcaster’s highest-paid journalist, faces a most jail sentence of 10 years.
Former BBC presenter Huw Edwards, as soon as the broadcaster’s star information anchor, has pleaded responsible to a few counts of creating indecent footage of youngsters.
Edwards admitted throughout a listening to at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Courtroom on Wednesday that he had obtained 41 indecent photos of youngsters on the messaging platform WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021.
The 62-year-old, who was the BBC’s highest-paid journalist, faces a most jail sentence of 10 years and a minimal of 12 months.
Decide Paul Goldspring mentioned Edwards can be sentenced on September 16, and that “all choices”, together with a direct jail sentence, can be thought-about.
Through the 25-minute listening to, prosecutor Ian Hope mentioned Edwards had been despatched a complete of 377 sexually specific photos by an grownup male on WhatsApp – 41 of those had been thought-about indecent, unlawful photos of youngsters.
Seven of the 41 photos had been of essentially the most critical type, two of which had been pornographic movies of a kid probably aged between seven and 9 years.
Edwards’s lawyer Philip Evans emphasised that the costs to which his consumer had indicated responsible pleas associated solely to photographs that had been despatched to him by way of WhatsApp.
“There is no such thing as a suggestion on this case that Mr Edwards has in any method made, within the conventional sense of the phrase, any photos in any bodily method or created any photos of any kind,” Evans mentioned.
Edwards resigned from the BBC in April on “medical recommendation”, six months after he was arrested following allegations he had paid an adolescent 1000’s of kilos for sexually specific images.
He was a family title in Britain for greater than 20 years, asserting the loss of life of Queen Elizabeth to the nation in 2022 and main protection of elections, royal weddings and the 2012 Olympics.
He made no remark as he left the court docket constructing.