Former BBC presenter Huw Edwards, who admitted to making indecent images of children, was sent 377 sexual images from paedophile Alex Williams, who he paid several hundreds to
Disgraced BBC presenter Huw Edwards has avoided jail after his sick accomplice was also dealt a suspended sentence.
Today at Westminster Magistrates Court, Edwards was given six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, with a requirement to complete a sex offender programme. Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring deemed the ex-News At Ten host “not a risk” to the public and declined to make him the subject of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
The court heard that Edwards, 63, was involved in an online chat with convicted paedophile Alex Williams on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021. He was sent 377 sexual images, of which 41 were indecent images of children and seven were Category A – the worst category.
Edwards admitted to having made seven Category A indecent images of children, as well as 12 Category B, and 22 Category C images. This includes two videos of a boy thought to be between the ages of seven and nine years old.
Williams, from Merthyr Tydfil, was sentenced in March at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court after pleading guilty to seven offences related to possessing and distributing indecent images. The 25-year-old Welshman was handed a 12-month suspended jail term.
The depraved pair started communicating in 2018 and continued their conversations across various platforms, however the only chat that could be recovered was from vile WhatsApp messages found on Williams’ phone. Williams became Edwards’ mule, supplying him with images of abuse.
Edwards and Williams met in person on one occasion and also shared a phone call in May 2018, BBC News reports. But for the most part, they interacted online. It was evident that their relationship was also transactional, as Williams, who was a university student, wanted compensation for the explicit material.
The father-of-five paid out several hundreds of pounds to the perverted student, who also directly asked for gifts, including a pair of expensive trainers. Prosecutor Ian Hope said: “Alex Williams says he wants some Air Force 1 trainers that cost around £100, and Mr Edwards offers to send him £200.”
However, Philip Evans KC, defending, said that Edwards did not pay Williams for the “purposes of receiving indecent images”. He also said that Edwards told Williams not to send images of children that were underage. He also argued that Edwards had not made images in the “traditional sense”, instead he had viewed them on a WhatsApp message.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Hope said: “It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature. It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money – low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis – to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.
“Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.” The court also heard how Williams had asked Edwards for a “Christmas gift after all the hot videos”.
Officers began their investigation into Edwards after retrieving a phone belonging to Williams. A Met spokesperson told the Mail Online: “The investigation into Huw Edwards began in November 2023 after information was received from South Wales Police.
“An examination of a phone seized by South Wales officers as part of an entirely unrelated investigation had revealed Edwards’ participation in a WhatsApp conversation. There was no connection between this investigation and the matters reviewed in July 2023. One other person was charged in relation to the messages shared via WhatsApp.” That person was Williams.
Philip Evans KC told the court that Williams targeted Edwards when he first reached out on Instagram at a time when he was “vulnerable”. The defence barrister said: “He was sought out by Alex Williams and as a consequence of being sought out… in amongst those lawful communications Mr Edwards was sent (images), he did not request in fact he positively at times tried to resist those images – but ended up with them in any event.”
Mr Evans KC continued to tell the court Edwards has “no memory of viewing any particular images” because of his mental health. He told the court: “You have read both the mental and physical health of Mr Edwards which were particularly bad at precisely the time when this offending took place. It’s had an effect on his cognition. He has no memory of viewing any particular images.
“He did not store any of these images on any device. He didn’t use them for any personal gratification.” Edwards will now be on the sex offenders register for seven years, which means he has to notify police about his whereabouts. The broadcaster, who resigned from the BBC in April, reportedly moved out of his family home in Dulwich, south London, soon after pleading guilty in court.
It is believed he has moved to another property in the capital and has been splitting his time between there and his native Wales. However today in court, Mr Hope made reference to Edwards “re-establishing his marriage”.
Since the disturbing revelation came to light, Williams appears to have gone into hiding, according to MailOnline. His parents, who denied knowledge of his sexual offences, said their son was no longer living with them and claimed to have not seen him for months.
Meanwhile Williams’ grandmother told the Times that following his graduation from Cardiff University two years ago, the paedophile had been working in the Welsh capital.
