A friend of Huw Edwards said he found it hard to accept the claims made against the BBC star after it was revealed that he was the one who had been suspended.
The 61-year-old experienced broadcaster has been accused of sending “inappropriate and flirtatious” texts to BBC employees and paying a young person £35,000 for sexually explicit pictures.
Edwards’s wife, Vicky Flind, said in a statement that he was “suffering from major mental health problems” and “is now getting in-patient hospital care, where he’ll stay for the foreseeable future.” This made it clear that Edwards was the BBC presenter at the heart of the accusations.
The Met Police looked into the claims and later found no proof of a crime. The BBC is still doing “fact-finding” investigations.
Andrew Billen, who writes features for The Times and is friends with Edwards, said he didn’t believe the accusations when they were first made public by The Sun.
He told Sky News: ‘Personally speaking I was incredibly shocked. It flew against everything I thought I knew about the man.
‘I didn’t believe it partly because I didn’t want to believe it.’
Billen said that he and Edwards had lunch together on Thursday, hours before the reporter found out about the accusations.
He described the TV personality as being in ‘high spirits’ and ‘certainly not a man with a tremendous dark cloud hanging over him.’
Billen expressed hope that Edwards would return to the BBC, saying: ‘I’d love to think he would be behind that desk again in a few weeks or months and presenting the election night, but I somehow doubt it.
‘I really hope he will have a career in broadcasting beyond this… And if not that then maybe a job in academia.
‘But he’s got to get past what is clearly a severe mental breakdown at the moment.’
He is a member of the media who has shown sympathy for Edwards, along with Piers Morgan and Nicky Campbell.
During his BBC Radio 5 Live show on Thursday morning, which was titled Huw Edwards: Did The Sun Get It Wrong?, Campbell said: ’What a saga this all is. It’s been very tough to cover here, obviously.
‘Our thoughts have to be with all those who have suffered, the family who have suffered and Huw Edwards of course.’
Morgan called Edwards a “stand-up guy” when he talked about the situation on his TalkTV show.
He added: ‘Clearly Huw Edwards is now in a very serious situation. He probably feels like he’s losing everything.
‘Whatever the outcome of the investigation, it would be inhuman not to think about the impact of all this on him, on his family, on his mental health, all of those are important things to consider now.’
Source My Celebrity Life.
