PEOPLE who defended Huw Edwards did so because the allegations were made by The Sun, a broadcaster has said.
The disgraced BBC newsreader, 62, faces the prospect of jail after admitting to three counts of making indecent images of children.
Edwards received sex abuse videos of kids as young as seven on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021.
It comes after we handed our dossier on Edwards to the BBC last year to help its probe into the newsreader after we first exposed how he had received sexual pictures from a vulnerable youngster.
Broadcaster and writer Geoff Norcott has now slammed people who “blindly” defended Edwards because of “pre-existing feelings” about The Sun.
He told Times Radio: “The admission, the guilt and the severity of the crime speaks for itself. I think the whole pattern of it was rather bizarre.
“When the story first broke, I think a lot of people because of pre-existing feelings about The Sun went into full Huw defence mode without really looking at what was being alleged.
“A concerned parent went to the BBC, didn’t feel like they were getting the help, then they went to The Sun about a vulnerable person in their late teens and then early 20s who was alleged to have drug dependency issues.
“This was the most powerful broadcaster in television. It is a double standard whereby we were told in MeToo some of it was about power, abuses of power – it might not be illegal, but how do you manage your power?
“And it was astonishing to me how people went out to bat blindly for the guy.”
It comes as a shocking Sun dossier reveals Edwards used his position of power at the BBC to groom young people for six years.
He carried out his seedy activities, including demands for sex pics, even while covering momentous events.
Mr Norcott added: “I thought if I had a friend of a similar age and they had explained that situation where a concerned parent had got in touch and sexual images were being sought that could’ve been funding s drug issue, I’d have been been concerned about that guy.
“The way that part of the media establishment tried to cover it up – it felt like it was more because of pre-existing feelings about The Sun rather than treating the first story on merit.
“Sadly, in many ways, that was the tip of a grim iceberg.”
The veteran broadcaster was arrested in November and charged on June 26 – although the information was only released on Monday.
On Wednesday, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard Edwards seven of the 41 images Edwards received fall under Category A – the most serious classification.
This included two moving images of a young child, possibly aged between seven and nine years old.
He also had photos of other children aged between 13 and 15 stored on his phone.
A further 12 images were classed as Category B and 19 as Category C.
Meanwhile, the mum who blew the whistle on the ex-newsreader broke down in tears after hearing he had pleaded guilty.
Speaking to The Sun, she said: “It sickens me to my core that he had those videos of that little boy when he was also talking to my child and asking them for sexual pictures.
“I knew he was an abuser — but now I know he is truly a monster.”
BY Tom Seaward
THIS is the latest in a long line of paedophile scandals dating back decades to have marred the BBC’s reputation.
Jimmy Savile’s shocking crimes rocked the corporation in 2012, when the presenter was revealed to be a prolific sex offender.
Savile, who died in 2011 before the allegations became widely known, is thought to have assaulted up to 450 young people, with police recording 31 allegations of rape against him.
His crimes stretched back to 1955 and allegations included the abuse of desperately ill children and necrophilia.
Jonathan King, BBC presenter and music impresario, was jailed for seven years in 2001 for molesting five teenage boys in the 1980s.
Thick of It actor Chris Langham was caged for ten months in 2007 for downloading child sex abuse images and videos.
It’s a Knockout star Stuart Hall got 30 months in 2013 for indecent assaults on girls.
Original Radio 1 presenter Chris Denning was caged for 13 years in 2014 for abusing 26 boys from 1967 to 1987, and got another 13-year sentence two years later.
He had also done jail time in the 1980s for assaulting boys.
And shamed presenter Rolf Harris was jailed for five-and- a-half years in 2014 for molesting four young girls, including one aged seven.
It comes as BBC Director General Tim Davie admitted the corporation knew Edwards’ arrest last November was for the most serious category of child abuse images.
He is now also facing mounting criticism for not firing their vastly paid star at the time.
Edwards quit the BBC in April after 40 years reporting on some of the world’s biggest stories.
But he was one of the BBC’s highest-profile and highest-paid presenters with a pay bracket between £475,000 and £479,999 for the year 2023/24.
Edwards has moved out of the family home in Dulwich, South London, he shared with Vicky.
The couple, who got engaged in 1993, have three sons and two daughters.
