BBC’s handing of the Huw Edwards scandal was ‘shambolic’, says prominent lawyer

THE BBC’s handling of the investigation into Huw Edwards has been slammed as “shambolic” by a prominent criminal lawyer.

Nick Freeman told GB News: “The BBC will very carefully look at themselves and say, ‘have we done the right thing here and concluded rapidly? No, we haven’t.’

“A very serious complaint was made, as I understand it, against Huw Edwards. They didn’t speak to him for seven weeks.

“What they should have done is obviously spoken to him straight away, certainly to make him aware that this allegation had been made, because he might have said yea or nay at that point and it would have affected things enormously.”

In a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, he continued: “This has been dealt with, if I may say, very shoddily by the BBC and they must learn lessons from this because this is really a shambolic way to deal with an investigation.

“And it’s important to bear in mind that the head of the BBC, who will carefully look at himself, and he didn’t know about this either for seven weeks.

“One wonders how you can have this sort of allegation made against somebody like Hugh Edwards and Mr Edwards doesn’t know and neither does the head of the BBC for about seven weeks.”

He added: “It has been catastrophic for the BBC, and I think heads will roll and this will seriously damage the BBC as one of the nation’s institutions.”