Edwards given suspended prison sentence over child abuse images

The former BBC presenter Huw Edwards has been given a six-month suspended prison sentence, completing an extraordinary fall from grace after admitting accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven.

- Daniel Boffey

Edwards, 63, who spent four decades at the BBC, looked pale and tired in the dock at Westminster magistrates court as the chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, handed down the sentence. Edwards, who nodded at various points during the sentencing remarks, was told that he had been "perhaps the most recognised newsreader/journalist in the UK" but that his "long-earned reputation is in tatters".

His six-month prison sentence will be suspended for two years and he will be obliged to attend a 40-day programme designed to stop him offending again. He pleaded guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children after he was sent 41 illegal images by Alex Williams, a convicted paedophile.

Edwards' avoidance of jail was criticised by campaigners. Marilyn Hawes, chief executive of Freedom From Abuse, said: "A sentence like this, which isn't a sentence, what message is it giving to others who are out there doing exactly the same and worse?" As he handed down the sentence, the chief magistrate said he accepted evidence that Edwards had no recollection of viewing the indecent images owing to his mental health issues at the time of the offences.

The court heard from a forensic psychosexual therapist that there was a "tangible risk" of suicide as Edwards, who is an inpatient at the private Nightingale mental health hospital in London, "considers that his family situation may be improved if he was not alive".

The report went on to say that social media had allowed Edwards, who had "managed" his sexual attraction to men since 1994, to "re-engage" with those desires and "boost his fragile self-esteem" but that his mental health problems had led to a failure of judgment.

The court also heard from a consultant psychiatrist who said Edwards was a "complex" individual who had a "particularly challenging" relationship with his father.