BBC director-general Tim Davie likely to face questions on presenter scandal

BBC Director-General Tim Davie is likely to face questions about the BBC presenter scandal in a scheduled media appearance on Tuesday.

The suspension of the unnamed presenter is likely to dominate the briefing on the BBC's annual performance.

The Sun newspaper first reported that the presenter had allegedly paid a teenager for sexually explicit photos.

A lawyer representing the young person later said the claim - made by their parents - was "rubbish".

The lawyer said the young person had sent a denial to the Sun about the allegations made by their mother before the newspaper published the story on Friday.

The Sun says it has seen evidence to back the mother's claims.

But in a letter sent on Monday to the BBC, the lawyer said the young person had sent a message to the paper on Friday saying the statement made by their mother to the newspaper was "totally wrong and there was no truth to it".

Nonetheless, the lawyer added, the Sun newspaper proceeded to publish "their inappropriate article".

"For the avoidance of doubt, nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality and the allegations reported in the Sun newspaper are rubbish," the lawyer wrote.

The lawyer also said press reporting amounted to an invasion of privacy, and criticised both the Sun and the BBC for not contacting their client.

"Nobody from the Sun newspaper appears to have made any attempt to contact our client prior to the publication of the allegations on Friday 6 July," the lawyer writes.

The lawyer also claimed in the letter that the mother and the young person were estranged.

In response, the Sun said: "We have reported a story about two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child.

"Their complaint was not acted upon by the BBC. We have seen evidence that supports their concerns. It's now for the BBC to properly investigate."

The Sun published a new story on Monday evening after BBC News disclosed excerpts from the young person's legal letter.

In a new interview, the mother and step-father who made the claims said they stood by their allegations.

The step-father is quoted in the article as saying allegations were put to the BBC "for an hour", appearing to contradict a previous statement in Monday's edition which stated: "The family say no-one from the corporation rang them for a proper interview after the initial complaint."

The article also reports that the step-father went to police about the matter but was told "they couldn't do anything as they said it wasn't illegal".

Mr Davie said in an email to BBC staff on Sunday that the corporation took the claims about its presenter "incredibly seriously".

The former editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, has said the original story presented in The Sun was "clearly one in which there was public interest" and that the BBC had questions to answer.

But as the story has developed, it had become "much more muddled", he told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight programme.

"It's curious that the child themselves wasn't approached, or if it's true that they contacted The Sun, that their version of events wasn't included," Rusbridger added.

BBC News does not know the identity of the young person and has not spoken directly to them.

It has not seen any of the Sun's body of evidence or the dossier the Sun reported was handed to the corporation by the family over the weekend.

The BBC said on Sunday that a staff member had been suspended but it did not identify him.

The corporation said it was working as fast as possible "to establish the facts in order to properly inform appropriate next steps".

If the presenter obtained sexually explicit images of the young person when they were under 18 years old, that is a matter for investigation as a possible criminal offence. The age of consent is 16, but a person under the age of 18 is not an adult. The law says they cannot consent to taking part in "indecent photographs".

The Metropolitan Police is "assessing" information from the BBC over the allegations made against the presenter but has said there is currently no investigation. Detectives held a virtual meeting with BBC representatives on Monday.

In its report on Friday, The Sun claimed that a BBC presenter had paid the individual tens of thousands of pounds for the images, starting when the young person was 17.

The BBC said it had first become aware of a complaint in May and that "new allegations" had been received on Thursday, the day before the Sun first published its claims.

On Sunday, the Sun reported that the young person's family was upset by the corporation's latest response, alleging "no-one from the BBC rang them for a proper interview after the initial complaint".

The paper also claimed the BBC presenter had made what it called two "panicked calls" to the young person - who is now 20 - after the original story came out.

With stories like this one, BBC News journalists treat the BBC in the same way as any other organisation the news service reports on.

And like with any other organisation, BBC News has to ask BBC management or BBC services for responses and contact the BBC press office for official statements.

Occasionally BBC journalists approach senior managers for unplanned interviews - known as "doorsteps" in the news business.

They sometimes also get offered interviews with management - like this one with Mr Davie over the Gary Lineker row.

And when this happens, they know they will be scrutinised within and outside the BBC over how well they hold their boss to account.