Huw Edwards in court for sentencing hearing

Disgraced BBC News presenter Huw Edwards is in court at a hearing where he will be sentenced for charges of making indecent images of children.

In July, the former newsreader admitted having 41 such images, which were sent to him on WhatsApp - including some showing a victim aged between seven and nine.

He nodded but stayed silent as he walked through a large gathering of photographers and journalists outside Westminster Magistrates' Court in London on Monday.

The court heard that Edwards sent hundreds of pounds to a convicted paedophile after they sent him pornographic images.

While most of the images were of adult men, a significant proportion of the images were of children.

Of the 377 images, 41 were indecent images.

Edwards wrote "yes xxx" when he was asked by Alex Williams if he wanted sexual images of a person whose "age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16".

Prosecutor Ian Hope said in his opening remarks in the case against the veteran broadcaster: "It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature.

"It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money - low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis - to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.

"Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500."

The prosecutor noted that at one point, in 2021, Williams asks if he was sending images that were too young.

Three days later Edwards replied “don’t send anything underage”.

• Watch live: Huw Edwards in court for sentencing

The maximum sentence is 10 years, for the category of offending - making of indecent images - the range is up to three years. Or he could receive a community order with a condition that he undergoes a sex offender treatment programme.

As he arrived at court on Monday, there were questions shouted about whether he wanted to apologise for his crimes but the newsreader, once the voice of BBC News, remained silent.

Until last year, Edwards was one of the main presenters on BBC One's News at Ten and often fronted coverage of major national events.

At his last court appearance, he pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. Under the law, images can mean photos or video clips.

He was found to have seven category A images - the most serious classification, which show serious abuse including penetrative sexual activity.

Most of the category A images were estimated to show children aged between 13 and 15. Two clips showed a child aged about seven to nine.

He also had 12 category B pictures, which involve non-penetrative sexual activity, and 22 photographs in category C, which covers other indecent images. The category B and C pictures showed children aged between 12 to 15.

Police later revealed the man who sent the images to Edwards was 25-year-old convicted paedophile called Alex Williams.

At the hearing in July, Ian Hope, prosecuting, told the court that a suspended sentence might be considered for Edwards.

Setting out the potential penalties under the law, he said that where there was the prospect of rehabilitation, a community order and sexual offender treatment programme could be considered as alternatives to a jail sentence.

Edwards was the BBC's highest-paid journalist, receiving between £475,000-£479,999 between April 2023 and April 2024.

The BBC has asked him to return the £200,000 he earned between his arrest last November and his resignation this April.

The BBC's director general said last week that "discussions are under way" about the possibility of clawing back the money.

"Making" indecent images can have a wide legal definition, and covers more than simply taking or filming the original picture or clip.

The Crown Prosecution Service says it can include:

• opening an email attachment containing an image
• downloading an image from a website to a screen
• storing an image on a computer
• accessing a pornographic website in which an image appears in an automatic "pop-up" window
• receiving an image via social media, even if unsolicited and even if part of a group
• or live-streaming images of children

A court must also decide whether an offence falls into the category of possession, distribution or production.

According to the Sentencing Council, which issues guidelines on sentencing that the courts must follow unless it is in the interests of justice not to do so, creating the original image counts as production - the more serious of the three categories. It adds that "making an image by simple downloading should be treated as possession for the purposes of sentencing".

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