Indeed, could you imagine the response if the man at the centre of this story had been a similarly sized star from the right-wing media – or a Tory MP? We don’t need to imagine, because we’ve been there before. They just want a different standard to apply in this case, because they’re mates with Edwards and feel sorry for him (Sopel) or they have a white-hot hatred for the tabloids (OJ). If that’s the standard going forward, press freedom is in real trouble – and the rich and powerful will be able to rest very easily indeed. But the ‘it’s not criminal, so leave him alone’ defence is moronic. Even if he is proven to have made some terrible mistakes, he shouldn’t be written off because of them – society has become far too vengeful in that regard post-#MeToo. He has every right to defend himself robustly, and we should give him a fair hearing. Edwards should not be condemned by allegations alone. First off, if you genuinely believe that the Edwards thing is not a story – if you think that allegations that a powerful man used his taxpayer-funded wealth to pay a crack-addicted young person for sex pics amount to a big fat nothing – then you do not belong in journalism. It is hard to know where to start with all this. Otherwise, its reporting has predominantly focussed on the young person’s parents’ complaints that the BBC, rather than the police, hadn’t intervened in the case. The Sun only really began discussing the potentially criminal nature of the case when the BBC called the police in to investigate. We know now there was no criminality, and the Sun has driven a vulnerable man into medical care.’ This is all despite the fact that the original story made no claims of illegality, only alleging that the ‘sleazy messages’ began when the youngster was 17. ‘They tried to destroy someone’s life with false claims of illegality involving a minor. ‘The Sun is a disgusting rag and they have to pay for what they’ve done to Huw Edwards’, Jones tweeted last night. Jones, like Sopel and the rest of Team Huw, seems to have drawn the conclusion that because Edwards hasn’t been charged with any crime – the Metropolitan Police have said ‘there is no information to indicate that a criminal offence has been committed’ – the story is now exposed as nonsense. The Guardian’s Owen Jones has also been spitting feathers, as is his wont. ‘Well done on handling the breaking news about Huw Edwards and the fact that he’s now being treated in hospital’, he said, ‘but to then straight off back of that into a report on him facing fresh allegations of misconduct? That was just terrible.’ (Should those staffers have just kept their mouths shut, Jon?) He was furious last night when the BBC dared to report that BBC staff had also accused Edwards of misconduct. ‘There are a number of people in the tabloid press and, dare I say it, in BBC News who need to give themselves a good, hard look in the mirror’, he told Good Morning Britain today. Jon Sopel, former BBC man and friend of Edwards, has been leading the charge. Edwards’ outing has prompted another spasm of tabloid-bashing among the supposedly respectable media. But it has become abundantly clear that by ‘drawing a line under it’ Edwards’ defenders mean accepting that the story was bullshit to begin with, that this scandal was confected by the Sun as part of some crusade against the BBC, and that here ends another sorry chapter in the history of press intrusion. The Sun, for its part, says it will refrain from publishing more stories about him for the time being and will cooperate with the BBC’s internal investigation. We’re all desperate to talk about something else and happy to give a clearly troubled – and now disgraced – man his space. The airwaves are awash with Edwards defenders saying now is the time to draw a line under it. Before he went into hospital, Edwards liked a tweet suggesting the Sun could face ‘the mother of all libel actions’, giving an indication of what that response might look like. Notably, she didn’t deny the allegations, which now include claims that Edwards sent ‘inappropriate’ messages to BBC staff, but said her husband would be responding to them in due course. She appealed for privacy, revealing that Edwards has been hospitalised with mental-health issues. Last night, Edwards’ wife, Vicky Flind, confirmed in a statement that her husband was the man in the frame.
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