The BBC has expressed regret and offered apologies to the parents of an individual who filed a complaint regarding the temporary suspension of BBC presenter Huw Edwards. They acknowledged that they should have taken prompter action.
After the scandal in July 2019, the company initiated an investigation into its process for addressing complaints.
Since being identified as the BBC presenter facing numerous accusations, including paying a 17-year-old for explicit photos, Edwards has not issued any public statements. He has allegedly engaged in this behavior since 2020.
According to his spouse, the experienced journalist was mentioned in a statement that revealed he was struggling with severe mental health problems. Following the surfaced controversy, he sought treatment at a hospital for a significant incident. His wife stated that he would address the published reports once he has recovered sufficiently.
Leigh Tavaziva, BBC’s group chief operating officer, stated on Tuesday that the report found “specific deficiencies in the process” relating to a complaint made to the corporation regarding Edwards. Tavaziva acknowledged that the complaint was not promptly brought to the attention of senior management and the corporation has apologized to the complainant for this error.
It is believed that a separate internal inquiry is currently being conducted to determine if Edwards, who hosted the BBC’s News at Ten for 20 years and reported on significant events such as the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, tarnished the reputation of the broadcaster.
The BBC announced it will enhance its protocols for addressing non-editorial grievances following a assessment conducted by Deloitte’s partner, Simon Cuerden. The review revealed that while the BBC has adequate policies, procedures, and knowledge for handling serious complaints, there is a noticeable lack of consistency across the organization.
The investigation discovered that the complaint was reported at a BBC premises in Cardiff on May 18. However, the BBC’s team in charge of investigations were unable to reach the person who made the complaint. As a result, the case was not given further attention and was not recorded in the BBC’s system. This means that the case was not made known to others within the BBC.
The statement mentioned that without proper documentation for contacting and following up with the complainant, it was unclear how to proceed when initial attempts at contact were not successful.
The BBC has implemented a new system to prevent this from occurring in the future.
The review also discovered that certain employees expressed feeling “anxious” about bringing up concerns.
According to the statement, these workers expressed less certainty in the thoroughness of the handling of their complaint if it involves another colleague or someone in a position of power, and if there is a perceived imbalance of power between the person making the complaint and the subject of the complaint.
An investigation was initiated following a report from the Sun in July stating that a popular host had given over £35,000 to a 20-year-old who was addicted to crack cocaine in exchange for explicit images, starting when the individual was 17 years old.
The young person’s parents reported a complaint to the BBC in May of last year, but it was disregarded. The BBC confirmed receipt of the complaint and had their corporate investigations team look into it. However, Tim Davie, the BBC’s boss, stated that at that time, no criminal allegations were made.
A lawyer for the person, now in their early 20s, said in a letter to the BBC in July that the allegations were “rubbish” and insisted “nothing inappropriate” had happened.
The attorney stated that there has been no inappropriate or illegal behavior between our client and the BBC personality, and the accusations published in The Sun newspaper are false.
The BBC stated that they promptly sent an email to the complainant, who was a relative, in order to obtain more details, but did not receive a reply. On June 6th, a follow-up call was attempted, but was unsuccessful, according to the BBC.
On July 6th, the BBC announced that they had been presented with fresh accusations. This was the initial notification that the director general and executive directors received regarding the claims. Following this, the presenter was immediately taken off air. On July 7th, the BBC implemented their Serious Case Management Framework (SCMF), and on July 9th, they suspended the presenter from their position.
Source: theguardian.com
