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The Yewtree investigations into historic sexual offences by public figures changed two things about the British relationship with celebrity. First, it made us more suspicious of it: the nice men in your living room had in several cases, it turned out, been abusing their familiarity in the most grotesque ways.
But as well as identifying several genuine perpetrators, the Yewtree overreached. In 2014, the police raided Cliff Richardâs home and the BBC was on hand to film it; no charges were brought and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Richardâs part. In 2018, the High Court ruled that the BBC coverage had infringed Richardâs privacy in a âseriousâ and âsensationalistâ way.
Both Richard and Paul Gambaccini, another innocent who was arrested during Yewtree and released without charge, have argued that those accused of sexual offences should have anonymity to protect them from the stigma of the âsex offenderâ label. And in practice, the media has grown increasingly cautious about publishing suspectsâ names, particularly famous ones.
Over the past few days, it has become obvious that this approach is as likely to inflame speculation as protect reputations. On Friday, The Sun reported that an unnamed âtop BBC starâ had been suspended over allegations that he had paid an unnamed 20-year-old âmore than ÂŁ35,000 since they were 17 in return for sordid imagesâ, according to the unnamed 20-year-oldâs unnamed mother.
The whole country became engaged in a high-stakes game of âGuess Who?â. There were so many candidates. Within 24 hours, one had been settled on in media gossip circles. Online, though, the guesses ran wild, with the words ânonceâ and âpaedoâ freely dispensed. This was potentially career-ruining stuff: Rylan Clark, Gary Lineker and Nicky Campbell all issued statements denying being the presenter in question.
But if you knew, the name still seemed so unlikely. Huw Edwards. Beneath the stentorian furrowed brow that has carried the nation through election night and the Queenâs death, the naked absurdity of male lust.
And there were still twists. On Monday, the young person involved made a statement calling The Sunâs report ârubbishâ (and saying that The Sun had been informed of this before publication). The BBC opened an investigation, then suspended it at the policeâs request. On Tuesday, another person told the BBC they had received âabusive and menacing messagesâ from the accused, after they met on a dating app. A detail that attracted less attention was that the abuse happened after the alleged victim had hinted on social media that they would out the presenter.
Then the police concluded that there had been no criminal offence. And finally, on Wednesday, Edwardsâs wife issued a statement confirming that it was him, and that âHuw is suffering from serious mental health issuesâ. âThe events of the last few days have greatly worsened matters,â she said. âHe has suffered another serious episode and is now receiving in-patient hospital care where heâll stay for the foreseeable future.â
The mood deflated at this point. It felt a bit like having stayed at a gathering too long, queasily sobering up among the cold canapes and dregs of booze. The Sun has announced it had no plans to publish further allegations. The BBC will continue its investigation.
There is no nice way to be accused of being a predator. But the toxic mix of celebrity and anonymity seems to have made this exceptionally messy: the scurrilous chatter about Edwards expanded to fill the void of information. By the time he was officially named, the shaming had grown so extreme that he began to look like the victim â and yet we still donât know what, if anything, heâs culpable of.
In one sense, the Edwards story is a very old-school tabloid expose. Itâs in the lineage of sports anchor Frank Bough, who was brought down by the News of the World in 1988 with the headline âI TOOK DRUGS WITH CALL GIRLSâ; or Jamie Theakston, who was reported by the Sunday People in 2002 to have visited a âvice clubâ. A good old-fashioned British sex scandal.
But although the British public loves those stories, it also harbours a conflicting instinct that celebs deserve some privacy â especially if itâs about sex. If Edwards was active on apps (he has yet to respond to the allegations), it says something that no one he communicated with went to the press until The Sun broke its story. Being a bit sleazy, on its own, isnât deemed disgraceful behaviour.
But that doesnât mean the British public has no taboos. There was much focus on the youth of the individual Edwards is alleged to have received pictures from. Age gap relationships, even legal ones, are broadly disapproved of. The Sun quoted the mother referring to âmy childâ, even though the individual is well into sexual majority â a technique to foil identification by not disclosing gender, maybe, but one that introduced an unsavoury implication.
The reports about Edwards also referred to his âpowerâ as a celebrity. His greater fame, like his greater age, was assumed to confer a seniority he was able to exploit. This is true of some kinds of celebrity: the YouTuber who grooms his fans, the popstar who chews through groupies. But itâs also a logic that, at the peak of #MeToo, saw cases such as a bad date with the comic Aziz Ansari rounded up to practically assault.
It feels doubtful that presenting the 10 OâClock News casts that kind of irresistible spell over young dating app users. Outside of the newsroom, itâs hard to imagine what power Edwards had to exercise. Conversely, anyone with compromising chats from an august national treasure has a one-click means of undoing them. The allegations against Edwards so far amount to unwise, but not illegal. There are certain things that are incompatible with broadcast gravitas, and it seems being incontinently thirsty online is one of them.
Edwards has suffered a humiliation that would be unsurvivable for many, personally as well as professionally. What he is accused of would appear to be a deep betrayal of his family; the way in which the accusations have been made has set him against his BBC colleagues, who at a minimum have seen their workplace brought into disrepute, and at worst have been dragged into the scandal on social media. And he has suffered in isolation, walled inside a formal namelessness that didnât stop everyone from knowing it was him.
It is a strange fact that there are, out there in the world, actual paedophiles â men convicted of viewing the worst child sex abuse imagery â serving non-custodial sentences and living their lives. Meanwhile Edwards appears to have been comprehensively ruined by an allegation that so far amounts, at worst, to looking at pictures of someone he could have legally had sex with. This is not to say that his actions are beyond moral reproach. Itâs possible to wrong other people without breaking the law.
Itâs also possible to be both sinned against and sinning. But there is no proportionality in public shaming, and there is no privacy on the internet. Edwards was the perfect public figure for this scandal because everything about his image suggested perfectly controlled professionalism. How incongruous for the solemn man behind the desk to have appetites.
Those already committed to the âabuserâ narrative will continue to believe the worst about Edwards; others will recalibrate him into a pure victim. The truth is probably messier. Whatever it is, it would have to be exceptionally bad to merit the destruction already inflicted. The problem is one of justice. Despite what Richard and Gambaccini believe, this is unlikely to be achieved in secret, any more than it is likely to be achieved by the febrile processes of social media.