Enda Brady: UK correspondent on Huw Edwards avoiding prison over indecent images of children

Former BBC news anchor Huw Edwards has avoided jail after admitting to charges of making indecent images of children.

Edwards has been handed a six month prison sentence suspended for two years, meaning he won't see jail as long as he doesn't re-offend.

UK correspondent Enda Brady says his career and reputation are in tatters - as it's clear no one will ever hire him again.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Into Bradio UK correspondents with us.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Now, Hey Inda, Hey Heather, great to speak to you again.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
What do you make of Hugh Edward's avoiding jail.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
I think it's disgraceful really, if you ask me. He look,
we're in a position now where there's basically no prison
spaces left. That is how bad everything that Keir Starmer
has inherited from the Conservatives. There's no more room left
in prison now. That wasn't mentioned in court yesterday, but
it was possibly a factor at the back of the
magistrate's mind. He initially said that, you know, this offense

(00:28):
was so serious it would deserve twelve months in prison. However,
he had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, and on
top of that there were mitigating factors like his mental
health and alcohol consumption and his struggles with his sexuality.
So the end result was he got six months suspended
prison suspended for two years. But his career is over.

(00:49):
It ends in disgrace. He can't go anywhere, and I
know it was last week on his LinkedIn he very
briefly put up a message saying that he will be
prepared to work for charities for free and nobody would
have that was taken down a few hours later. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I mean, look, I take the argument about the jails
being full, because they are, But you know, it's only
about six weeks ago or five weeks ago that you
guys were popping people in jail for saying nasty things online.
How on earth have you got to the point where
you go to jail for something like that, but you
don't go to jail for watching kiddie porn.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, precisely. Look, it's a very very good point and
it's hard to argue against that. You know, there was
a woman who got fifteen months for what she wrote
on Facebook, fifteen months for a Facebook post, and he's
basically trading or sending about three thousand dollars to a
convicted sex offender for grotesque images of children as young
as seven, and he has managed to not go to prison.

(01:42):
So there's a lot of anger about it. But I
just I'm staggered at the fall from Grace. We have
never known anything like it. This was the guy who
broke the news of the Queen's death, This was the
guy who anchored UK election coverage. He was the king
of the BBC newsroom and now he's basically a convicted
sex offender.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Terrible, why standing by him?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
He's wearing his wedding ring. We don't know. We were
told that they had split, but he went into court
yesterday wearing a wedding ring, so we simply don't know.
But then people in the industry are just horrified. I
mean it is a spectacular fall from grace.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I mean, the guy is like uber famous in the UK.
If you were in this position, wouldn't you just leave
the country? Like he just needs to leave the country,
doesn't he.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
He does, Yeah, I don't know where he'll go. But look,
if he has any remorse, if he's truly remorseful, he
needs to reply to the BBC Director General who's asked
for four hundred thousand dollars of salary back because the
BBC were stupid enough to keep paying him after he
got arrested. I mean questions about the leadership of the
BBC as well. I mean, show some courage, so show

(02:45):
some moral duty. If a guy has been arrested for
heenous allegations, get rid, don't keep paying him. He was
on nearly nine hundred thousand then z I mean, you know,
just so many questions.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Is part of the reason why they did that, because
I was just reflecting about this earlier that at the
start it did not seem nearly as grim as what
we are dealing with now. I mean, at the start
it was just a kind of embarrassing photo online and
he'd been talking to and getting photos from a kid
who was too young, but legal what we're doing with not.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hang on, hang on. He wasn't arrested over that. He
was arrested because South Wales Police had this in their net.
They got this sex offender who had a horrible interest
in children. So it's too complete. Yes, yes he was.
He was arrested as part of this. The senior management

(03:36):
knew about this, so the two things were completely separate.
The first one was bad enough and terrible as it was,
with you know, front page news and the mother of
the young boy saying, you know, this man to stop
contacting my child for indecent images, and then he gets
arrested because South Wales Police had got all the electronic
devices from this sex offender and guess who he's been

(03:57):
swapping images with and receiving money from. Terrible Jesus grim
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