Timeline: How allegations against Huw Edwards unfolded

See the latest version of this timeline here.

Huw Edwards has resigned from the BBC on medical advice after last year being named as the presenter at the centre of days of allegations and speculation.

The Sun newspaper first reported that the presenter, who at that point was unnamed, was alleged to have paid a young person for sexually explicit photos.

Here is a timeline of events:

April 2023

The parents of the young person contacted South Wales Police. The force said their information related to "the welfare of an adult", and that "no criminality was identified".

18 May 2023

A family member went to a BBC building to make a complaint about the behaviour of a BBC presenter, according to the corporation.

19 May 2023

The family member made a 29-minute call to the BBC's audience services team, which then referred it to the BBC's corporate investigations team.

They decided the complaint didn't include an allegation of criminality, but did merit further investigation. It "was very serious", according to director general Tim Davie.

The investigations unit said they emailed the complainant to ask for more information so they could verify the claims, and carried out checks to verify the identity of the complainant.

6 June 2023

The corporate investigations team had received no reply to the email so tried to call the mobile number provided by the complainant. They said the call did not connect.

However, the Sun later reported that "the family say no-one from the corporation rang them for a proper interview after the initial complaint".

The BBC said no additional attempts to contact the complainant were made after this date, but the case "remained open".

6 July 2023

The Sun newspaper told the BBC via the corporate press office about allegations concerning Edwards. According to the BBC, the claims made by the Sun contained new allegations, which were different from those received by the investigations team.

The BBC said this was the first time Mr Davie or any executive directors were made aware of the case. They set up an incident management group to lead the response.

A senior manager spoke to the presenter about the allegations, and Edwards first learned of the allegations on this day, his wife said. The BBC said it was agreed that he should not appear on air while the allegations were being investigated.

When later asked why the presenter was not spoken to sooner, Mr Davie said: "You don't take that complaint directly to the presenter unless it has been verified."

7 July 2023

The Sun's first story was published, about the mother's claims that an unnamed BBC presenter paid their child tens of thousands of pounds for explicit photos over three years, beginning when they were 17.

In its first public statement, the BBC said any information would "be acted upon appropriately, in line with internal processes".

The BBC also made contact with the Metropolitan Police.

8 July 2023

The BBC said it received some materials from the family member regarding the complaint on this and the following day.

Meanwhile, following speculation about the star's identity on social media, BBC presenters including Gary Lineker, Jeremy Vine, Rylan Clark and Nicky Campbell denied involvement to publicly clear their names.

9 July 2023

The BBC said it had suspended a male staff member and was "working as quickly as possible to establish the facts in order to properly inform appropriate next steps".

The Sun reported that the presenter allegedly made two calls to the young person and asked them "what have you done", and appealed to them to call their mother to "stop the investigation".

10 July 2023

Representatives from the BBC met detectives from the Met's Specialist Crime Command, but there was "no investigation at this time".

In a letter to the BBC, the lawyer representing the young person at the centre of the original allegations disputed their mother's account of events, saying "the allegations reported in the Sun newspaper are rubbish".

The letter claimed the young person sent the newspaper a denial on Friday, but that it proceeded to publish "their inappropriate article".

In response, the Sun said it had "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" and it had "seen evidence that supports their concerns", the Sun added. "It's now for the BBC to properly investigate."

The parents told the Sun they stood by their account. The stepfather was quoted as saying the allegations were originally put to the BBC "for an hour".

11 July 2023

During a press conference to launch the BBC's annual report and an interview with Radio 4, Mr Davie gave more details of the corporation's response.

The director general said he wanted to examine whether the BBC raises "red flags quick enough" when such complaints are made.

The BBC accepted there were "lessons to be learned following this exercise", and the organisation's group chief operating officer will assess whether protocols and procedures are appropriate.

That afternoon, another young person told BBC News they had felt threatened by a message from the presenter.

The individual in their early 20s said they were contacted on a dating app and pressured to meet up, but never did. When the young person hinted online that they might name the presenter, they were sent abusive messages.

Jeremy Vine said the presenter "should now come forward publicly" because the new allegations "will result in yet more vitriol being thrown at perfectly innocent colleagues" and the BBC "is on its knees with this".

The Sun alleged that the presenter broke Covid lockdown rules to meet a 23-year-old, who he had met on a dating site.

The paper also published what it said was an Instagram chat between the presenter and a 17-year-old, in which the presenter sent messages including love heart emojis.

12 July 2023

Detectives ended their assessment of the details and decided there was no information to indicate that a criminal offence had been committed.

Edwards' wife Vicky Flind named him as the BBC presenter at the centre of the allegations.

She said she was doing so "primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children".

Edwards was "suffering from serious mental health issues", she said. "As is well documented, he has been treated for severe depression in recent years. 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.

"To be clear, Huw was first told that there were allegations being made against him last Thursday."

Mr Davie sent an email to staff saying an internal investigation would continue now police were no longer involved.

The Sun said it had no plans to publish further allegations, and would "provide the BBC team with a confidential and redacted dossier containing serious and wide-ranging allegations which we have received, including some from BBC personnel".

The BBC reported fresh allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Edwards towards junior staff. Two current workers and one former member of staff claimed they were sent messages that made them uncomfortable.

13 July 2023

The BBC resumed its investigation into Edwards, after police found no evidence of criminal behaviour over claims he paid a young person for explicit images.

Mr Davie also said he had asked for a separate review into whether the BBC's complaints protocols and procedures were appropriate, after it was revealed the corporation contacted the family who made the allegations about Edwards just twice - despite deeming them "very serious".

Former controller of Radio 4 Mark Damazer highlighted the importance of the BBC exercising a proper duty of care.

Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, he said "it is extremely important that Tim [Davie] and the BBC doesn't feel that it has to be rushed by other people's agendas to come to measured, appropriate and evidenced conclusions".

18 July 2023

The BBC was under "huge pressure" to reveal that Edwards was the presenter facing media allegations last week, its acting chairwoman said.

The BBC board held two emergency meetings in the next two days, acting chair Dame Elan Closs Stephens said.

"We had a duty to act with some calm and rationality in the face of lack of rationality and lack of calm."

25 July 2023

The Sun newspaper was asked by a parliamentary committee about its editorial procedures after it published allegations about Edwards.

The Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee wrote to the paper for an "insight into the Sun's verification and decision-making processes".

In response, the Sun said it was "a responsible media organisation".

The newspaper "has strict editorial and legal frameworks in place so as to ensure that articles are accurate and lawful", editor Victoria Newton said in her letter of reply.

The committee also asked the BBC for more details of its own review.

27 February 2024

The BBC apologised for the way it handled a complaint about Edwards.

Allegations about his behaviour were made in May 2023 but did not reach senior managers until 6 July.

The corporation said the complaint was not "escalated quickly enough" and that it has now changed its processes.

An independent report by Deloitte into the BBC's complaints handling procedure said a complaint was made on 18 May.

When the contact was first made by the family of a young person at a BBC location in Cardiff, the complainant was correctly signposted to the BBC's audience services as the first port of call for their complaint.

Once the complainant had contacted audience services on 19 May, the complaint was escalated to the corporate investigations team the same day.

But the case was then not logged on the BBC's case management system and there was no "documented process" for following up the allegations.

This meant that there "was no opportunity for wider visibility of the case within the BBC".

The BBC said it had already made improvements to its non-editorial complaints process but had further plans for "greater consistency" across teams... regardless of the route by which the complaints are received and reviewed."

It also said it would make better use of technology to ensure there is "a complete picture of all cases".

The report also stated some employees they spoke to said they would feel "nervous about raising a complaint" with the BBC, particularly if it was about a more senior colleague or a high-profile figure.

It said: "These employees said they have lower levels of confidence in how robustly the complaint will be handled if it is a grievance relating to another member of staff or talent, particularly where there is an actual or perceived power discrepancy between the complainant and the subject of the complaint."

22 April 2024

Edwards resigned from the BBC on "medical advice", the corporation said.

"Huw Edwards has today resigned and left the BBC," a short statement said.

"After 40 years of service, Huw has explained that his decision was made on the basis of medical advice from his doctors.

"The BBC has accepted his resignation which it believes will allow all parties to move forward. We don't believe it appropriate to comment further."

Edwards, 62, has not publicly commented.

It is normal policy at the BBC that an employee receives full pay while suspended. He was the corporation's highest-paid newsreader, receiving between £435,000 and £439,999 in the year 2022/2023.

The BBC confirmed that Edwards was not paid off as part of his departure.