Huw Edwards: Who is the BBC presenter?

BBC News presenter Huw Edwards, who has been named as the presenter at the centre of an explicit photo row, is one of the UK's most high-profile broadcasters.

He has been the BBC's choice to front coverage of major national events, a reflection of how well-regarded he is by the corporation.

Trusted by viewers, he has over decades built a reputation as a reliable and calming presence on screen.

Last Wednesday, on what transpired to be his last day on air for BBC News before the scandal broke, Edwards was broadcasting from Edinburgh as Scotland prepared to greet King Charles.

Less than a week later, the 61-year-old's broadcasting career is under serious pressure, after his wife issued a statement naming him as the BBC presenter facing a series of damaging allegations.

He joined BBC News as a trainee in 1984 and he eventually secured a job as political reporter for BBC Wales. Just two years later, he became BBC Wales's parliamentary correspondent.

By the early 1990s he was the BBC's chief political correspondent at Westminster.

He became a regular face on the BBC News channel, then called BBC News 24, after it launched in 1997.

In its early days, the channel was plagued by technical difficulties, but Edwards' confident and level-headed performance in challenging circumstances was said to have impressed BBC bosses.

Around the same time, Edwards was working as an occasional cover presenter on BBC One's Six O'Clock News, one of the most-viewed television news bulletins in the UK, becoming one of the programme's main anchors in 1999.

Four years later, he was promoted to the Ten O'Clock News, widely seen as the BBC's flagship bulletin, and was increasingly asked to present and commentate on major national events for the BBC.

They included wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (as they were known at the time) in 2011, the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh (2021), the Queen's Diamond and Platinum Jubilee (2012 and 2022) and the coronation of King Charles (2023).

He was also on air when Nelson Mandela died in 2013, and co-hosted the results of the Brexit referendum in 2016.

But perhaps the biggest single moment in Edwards' long presenting career came last September, when he announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

He had started his shift early that day following rumours of the Queen's declining health, presenting rolling news coverage from 14:00 before confirming the Monarch's death to the nation that evening while wearing a black tie.

As well as major royal events, Edwards had recently become the face of the BBC's general election coverage.

The Welsh broadcaster was one of the BBC's top earners. In 2017, the first year the BBC was compelled by Parliament to publish the salaries of its star presenters, it was revealed Edwards made £550,000.

Following a flurry of negative headlines about the amount of money the BBC spent on top talent, and the disparity between some of its male and female stars, Edwards took a pay cut, and six years later his salary stands at £435,000.

Last year, Edwards defended himself against criticism that newsreaders are overpaid relative to their workload, after a debate about how difficult it is to use an autocue to read a pre-written script.

Edwards made a cameo appearance as himself in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall, presenting a BBC News report on a fictionalised attack on the British intelligence service MI6.

In an interview with BBC Radio Cymru in 2021, Edwards indicated he may not have many years left as the corporation's chief news anchor due to the demands of the role.

"The nightly news business, after 20 years, that can be taxing, even though I still enjoy the job," he said. "But I don't think I'll be doing that for long… I think it's fair for the viewers to get a change."

In the same year, Edwards made a Welsh-language documentary about his career, during which he revealed he had suffered bouts of depression over 20 years, and had been left "bedridden" by his struggle with this mental health.

But after a distinguished career at the BBC, Edwards' reputation is now severely damaged, possibly beyond repair.

After the Sun published allegations on Friday that an unnamed BBC presenter had paid large sums of money for explicit images of an individual, there were days of speculation about who the presenter might be.

Over the following days, the Sun, and later BBC News, released further allegations, keeping the story in the headlines.

Finally, on Wednesday, his wife Vicky Flind confirmed Edwards' identity on his behalf, saying she was doing so "primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children".

"Huw is suffering from serious mental health issues," she said. "The events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters, he has suffered another serious episode and is now receiving in-patient hospital care where he'll stay for the foreseeable future."

"Once well enough to do so, he intends to respond to the stories that have been published."