Embarrassing revelations about an as-yet-unidentified BBC star presenter continue to pour in. Cash for pornographic photos, threats and online dating: The case again made headlines in most British newspapers on Wednesday, with new accusations from the tabloid the Sun, at the origin of the first revelations on Friday evening. The newspaper also devoted 7 pages to the case on Wednesday.
No British media has so far published the name of the presenter, famous for years, for fear of sanctions for defamation or invasion of privacy. Yet his supposed identity has circulated widely on social media, and an absence hasn’t gone unnoticed by millions of BBC viewers.
Reminder of the case
The scandal began on Friday evening, when the Sun quoted a woman – unnamed – as saying her child, who was originally 17, had received 35,000 pounds from the presenter over three years, “in exchange for sordid photos”, which had fueled his crack addiction.
THE Sun affirmed Tuesday evening that the presenter had gone in February 2021 during the anti-Covid confinement to a 23-year-old person met on a dating application, with whom he had drunk tea. At the time, anti-Covid measures prohibited receiving a stranger at home. The young person described him as “very arrogant” and “very insistent” and added that the presenter had paid him 650 pounds (about 760 euros) after their meeting.
Since then, three other revelations have added to the case: BBC news revealed that the presenter had sent threats from his mobile phone to another young person he met on a dating site, after this young person had implied that he was going to reveal his identify. THE Sun also claimed that he contacted another 17-year-old, whom he did not know, on Instagram in 2018.
A charge with serious consequences for the BBC
On Tuesday, BBC Director General Tim Davie admitted that the initial accusations of the Sun were very damaging to the audiovisual group, and announced a review of internal procedures in the event of a “red alert”. The channel’s star presenter, Jeremy Vine, also spoke on his Channel 5 show on Wednesday to call on the presenter to come out of his silence. “Look at the damage done to the BBC, look at the damage done to his friends, to those who are falsely accused – and the more he will leave [continuer], the worse it will be for him,” he said. A statement which, according to comments reported to Jeremy Vine, made the presenter “very angry”. The latter would even be determined to “make the situation last”.
The BBC acknowledged on Tuesday that the audiovisual group had been contacted in mid-May by the family. At the time, the channel had not told the presenter about it, and its internal investigation service – which according to Tim Davie had received 250 complaints over the past six months – had only tried twice by email and telephone to contact the family, the initial accusations not involving “criminal allegations”.
It is apparently only when the Sun told the channel he was going to come out with the story that the presenter was approached by the BBC’s internal investigation service and then suspended on Sunday. The BBC then spoke to police who asked them to take a break from their internal investigation. None of the people involved in this saga have been identified.