AS I sat and listened to how Huw Edwards had paid more than £1,000 to a convicted paedophile who sent him child abuse videos, my blood ran cold.
Of course, everything we have heard about Edwards’ true character is deeply disturbing but I was not expecting this dark twist.
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As the sickening details were read out to the chief magistrate, I immediately recognised the dates.
His vile secret correspondence with Alex Williams overlapped with my own investigations into his depraved double life.
I revealed last year how married Edwards breached lockdown rules to see a young man he had met on a dating website. He used two trains to travel across the country to see the man after texting him to say he was “horny as f***”.
That illicit meeting was on February 18, 2021, and Edwards sent him £200 afterwards.
Yesterday, we heard Williams had sent Edwards abuse videos the day before on February 17. Then on the day after the meeting, on February 19, 2021, Williams asked: “Is the stuff I’m sending too young?”
I could not believe the dates matched up. His sordid activities seemed to happen on an almost daily basis over the past six years.
Everything we heard at Westminster magistrates’ court bore alarming parallels with so much I had learned about the newsreader’s behaviour during my own 18-month investigation. It was the same modus operandi I had heard countless times from young men who had the misfortune of ending up in his correspondence.
It was quite clear — Edwards was soliciting and grooming them on an industrial scale.
The relentless desires were not even put on hold for a royal funeral or the very Covid restrictions he relayed to his millions of ordinary viewers.
The truth is that Edwards has for years used his BBC status to sexually harass and groom colleagues and fans decades younger.
His barrister appeared to try to win sympathy by suggesting the pandemic — and a reduced access to mental health services — was a factor in his offending.
Shocked when he responded
Well, the meticulous research carried out by The Sun suggests that argument is weak at best. I could have confused what was said yesterday about Edwards with any of the dozens of complaints we received when our story first broke.
And the numerous complaints raised to my colleagues at the paper as long as six years ago.
Edwards’s paedophile texting partner, Alex Williams, was just 19 when the two got in contact
It is a clear pattern of behaviour. Money paid. Sexual images exchanged.
Yesterday, shortly after the sentencing, I received a call from the mother of the young person who was at the heart of our original exposé of Edwards.
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Her vulnerable son was paid £35,000 for sex pictures.
The mum said to me: “Same old predator Huw.”
The two cases — on any reading — have striking similarities.
Edwards’ paedophile texting partner, Alex Williams, was just 19 when the two got in contact.
He did not know Edwards but astonishingly was able to get so close to the fallen BBC star by simply sending a message via the presenter’s Instagram account.
The lad at the centre of our original story — who it must be made clear is not accused of any wrongdoing — has told how he was a teenager who was able to begin an intimate messaging exchange with Edwards after contacting him via social media.
Both were shocked when he responded to them.
That conversation, just like it was with Williams, was swiftly moved by Edwards to WhatsApp.
Victims chosen carefully
The age difference, the line of communication, Edwards’ astonishing demands to satisfy his desires — it was so shockingly similar.
And most startling of all was the money exchanged.
He paid, as the judge so succinctly put it, as a “thank you”. It was always inferred that cash would be handed over in exchange for a chat that was sexual in nature.
And his victims were always chosen so carefully.
Williams was a student who needed the money for university, the young man was pressured to meet during lockdown and send pictures, and the youngster who sent him sexual pictures was a drug addict.
What The Sun uncovered was a powerful man who used his position to groom younger men and had we not done so Edwards’ could well have remained undetected
Hundreds of pounds was given for Christmas presents which was spent on designer hoodies and expensive jewellery.
He even bought the young man at the centre of our story and Williams a pair of trendy new trainers.
These are presents, from a man in his 60s, that would appeal to a fashion-conscious teenager.
Cash was used as a leverage to the men — who could only dream of earning his £475,000 salary. What The Sun uncovered was a powerful man using his position to groom younger men and had we not done so, Edwards could well have remained undetected.
The public, who so often turned to Edwards and his BBC bulletins to be guided through bad news, is appalled.
But yesterday’s sentencing of the anchor will not be the end of the story for the BBC.
The scandal has reached the highest levels, with director-general Tim Davie coming under huge pressure and the BBC accused — yet again — of a lack of transparency over an abuser in its ranks.
It remains to be seen whether the leader can steer the corporation through what has been one of its most damaging crises and cling on to his own highly paid job.
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