There was panic among many BBC stars this weekend. The tabloid The Sun revealed on Friday that a public body presenter had paid a young man up to €40,000 over a three-year period in exchange for photos of him with sexual content. When this exchange began, the alleged victim was 17 years old and still a minor. The mother, who filed a complaint on May 19 and a month later saw the alleged perpetrator still standing in front of the cameras, assures that her son spent the money received on crack (cocaine, which is smoked).
It was only on Thursday that the BBC reacted vigorously when it received new allegations of “a different nature” against the presenter, its director-general Tim Davie explained in an internal email to all staff. The suspect was suspended and removed from the screen. But as it all unfolded with a weekend in between, many familiar faces and voices on public broadcaster publicly denied they were under investigation: Rylan Clark, Jeremy Vine, Jon Kay, Nicky Campbell and even Gary Lineker, the former soccer player and star of sports entertainment, used social networks to stop the incipient harassment they were being subjected to.
Management of the public body met with London’s Metropolitan Police this Monday to report on an investigation that has put the BBC back in the spotlight. However, at the end of a virtual meeting, Scotland Yard assured that “no investigation will be initiated for the time being”. The responsible officials would first evaluate the information received, according to the police.
Public pressure to reveal the moderator’s name is mounting, but the matter still raises enough legal and factual doubts that the company wants to maintain a prudent stance. “This is a complex and evolving issue and we are working as quickly as possible to establish the facts and take informed next steps. “It is very important to address these matters fairly and carefully,” the company said in a public statement.
“We still don’t have all the data, we’re in speculative territory,” Home Secretary Suella Braverman told ITV, “but with allegations as serious as these it is clear that a rapid response is essential to both getting justice as well as maintaining a good image,” added Braverman.
The British government has indicated that the BBC will have to explain its slow response. It took about six weeks for the matter to reach Davie’s office. “When the time comes, it may be necessary to conduct an investigation into how these allegations have been addressed,” Attorney General Alex Chalk said.
The Sun, like every other tabloid, has abused its exclusivity over the past 72 hours, but the way it doses the information and some ambiguity in the story serve to help understand why the BBC and the government z Be cautious at the moment. The newspaper reported on Monday that the presenter made two “panic calls” to the young man shortly after the news was published. “What did you do?” he asked his alleged victim, insisting that he stop his mother, who was speaking to the newspaper.
“We just wanted the BBC to force him to stop what he’s doing,” said the woman, who on Saturday submitted a full-length report to investigators at the public body. “I went through hell that lasted three years. The implications of all of this were terrifying. My son, who was an excellent student, had a radical change in behavior. Because it was me who fed my son with crack. Without him, I wouldn’t have had access to that money,” the mother said.
Accustomed to the constant scrutiny of other media and the sometimes clearly hostile attitude of the Conservative Party towards it, the BBC has weathered several crises in recent years. However, the idea of a new sex scandal involving underage victims has brought to mind for many the darkest taint in the company’s history: the case of Jimmy Savile. Years after the death of the eccentric Top of The Pops host, Britons learned of all the sexual abuse he committed throughout his career, which took advantage of his popularity and proximity to power. In 2013, a study by the London Metropolitan Police and the NSPCC Children’s Advocacy Institution examined nearly 500 rape and molestation complaints filed in a matter of months by 13 police departments across the country and concluded that the moderator committed at least 214 crimes against the sexual freedom, of which more than 70 women and girls were direct victims, one as young as eight years old.
At the end of April, then-BBC chairman Richard Sharp finally resigned after months of grappling with discontent and rebellion that had spread among public sector workers and scores of Conservative and Labor MPs. An independent report accused Sharp of helping former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who appointed him to that very position, obtain a personal loan of more than €900,000 in 2020 that would help him get out of his financial difficulties.
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