Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pushed for a knighthood for serial child sex abuser Jimmy Savile, seen here together at a 1980 fundraising event for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

Elizabeth Haigh – The Daily Mail July 31, 2024

The BBC has been rocked by paedophile scandals in recent years stretching back decades as flagship faces including Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall hid a secret dark side.

Today the corporation’s troubles deepened as former face of BBC News Huw Edwards pleaded guilty to making vile pictures of children.

But he is just the latest in a long series of paedophiles who have worked at the BBC, many of whom have been exposed following the Savile scandal which rocked the corporation in the early 2010s.

The reputation of the BBC has been marred by one paedophile scandal after another dating back over half a century.

Here MailOnline takes a look at the worst scandals surrounding the corporation.

Huw Edwards

Edwards, 62, kept seven category ‘A’ images of the very worse kind on his phone and shared them on WhatsApp with other child sex offenders.

The veteran news broadcaster, who announced the death of Queen Elizabeth II and presented coverage of her funeral had a total of 41 foul pictures.

The sick child porn images showed youngsters aged between seven and 14, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard, with several of the worst images depicting children under nine.

His career looks to be over – and he faces up to ten years in jail, although he likely to escape custody because of prison overcrowding.

The father-of-five has now moved out of the family home in Dulwich after separating from his wife. He has been living in a flat in Earlsfield, south west London.

The Welshman resigned from the BBC three months ago after a glittering career spanning almost 40 years.

Surrounded by police officers, Edwards arrived at Westminster Magistrates’ Court wearing black sunglasses, a blue tie, white shirt and black suit.

Edwards, of Wandsworth, southwest London, spoke to confirm his date of birth, address and admit the three charges.

He kept seven category A images, the most serious classification of indecent images, on a phone.

Edwards also made 12 category B images and 22 category C images. The offences are contrary to sections 1(1)(a) and 6 of the Protection of Children Act 1978.

Category A involves images involving penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal or sadism; Category B covers images which show non-penetrative sexual activity; while Category C is for indecent images not within categories B or C.

Edwards presented the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and Platinum Jubilee in 2022, the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (now the Prince and Princess of Wales) in 2011 and also the funeral of Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 2021.

Jimmy Savile 

The BBC’s most prolific paedophile scandal concerned presenter Jimmy Savile, who died before allegations of his sexual abuse of young children became widely known.

He faced repeated allegations during his life but refuted them, and was the subject of two police investigations – although neither led to charges.

In 2009 Savile famously defended viewers of child pornography, claiming they ‘didn’t do anything wrong’.

After his death in 2011 Newsnight drew up a report on Savile’s alleged offences, including interviewing survivors, but it was never published.

The following year ITV revealed details of allegations against Savile concerning up to ten women, one of whom was 14 at the time.

As more victims came forward the BBC faced immense scrutiny over how Savile was permitted to abuse girls and women for decades, including those who were seriously ill in hospital.

It is thought up to 450 young people were assaulted by the presenter.

Police recorded 199 crimes in 17 police force areas in which Savile was a suspect, among them 31 allegations of rape.

The crimes stretched 1955 to 2009 and allegations included the abuse of desperately ill children and necrophilia with corpses at included Leeds General Infirmary mortuary.

BBC bosses were accused of staging various cover-ups to protect Savile, who committed the offences at hospitals and locations across the country including BBC Television Centre.

Chris Denning

Chris Denning, one of the original Radio 1 presenters, was repeatedly found guilty of various child sex offences until his death in 2022.

He was a member of the paedophile ring the Walton Hop in the 1970s and was first convicted for gross indecency and indecent assault in 1974.

Escaping a jail sentence the first time, the Where It’s At presenter was put behind bars for 18 months in 1985 for gross indecency with a child.

Three years later, he was jailed for three years in 1988 for indecent assault on a 13-year-old boy and possession of indecent photographs.

In 2000, Denning was charged with offences in the Czech Republic and convicted of abusing seven boys under 15.

He was released from prison in 2001, before returning to the UK in 2005, where he was arrested at Heathrow and admitted five charges of indecent assault of boys aged under 16. Denning was jailed for four years.

In 2008, he was extradited from Britain to Slovakia, where he was jailed for five years for producing child pornography.

In 2014 Denning was jailed for 13 years after he admitted to a total to 40 sexual offences committed from 1967 to 1987 relating to 26 male victims, the youngest of whom was nine years old.

In 2016, Denning was given another 13 years after pleaded guilty to 21 sex offences against 11 boys between 1969 and 1986, the youngest of whom was aged eight.

Jonathan King

Jonathan King was convicted of sexual offences against five boys aged 14 and 15

Presenter and singer-singwriter Jonathan King was another member of the Walton Hop with Denning and rose to fame with his hit song, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon.

The 1980s saw him in prominent roles on the BBC including on Top of the Pops.

But in 2001 King’s success ended as he was convicted of sexual offences committed between 1983 and 1987 against five boys aged 14 and 15, for which he was jailed for seven years.

Several other trials either collapsed or King was not convicted.

After his release he published several books and still writes a column for prisoner magazine Inside Time.

Chris Langham

Actor Chris Langham, who starred in the BBC’s hit series The Thick of It as cabinet minister Hugh Abbott, became a familiar face – and voice – on the BBC after featuring in a series of radio shows and TV series.

Langham, 75, was named Best Comedy Actor in the 2005 British Comedy Awards and won the Best Comedy Performance award for his role in The Thick of It.

But in 2005 the actor was arrested by Kent Police as part of Operation Ore, which targeted credit-card customers paying to access indecent and abusive images of children on the internet.

In 2007 he was found guilty of downloading 15 child sexual abuse images and videos.

Langham was sentenced to ten months in prison and placed on the sex offender’s list for ten years.

His trial heard that one of the videos showed the ‘sadistic brutalisation of an eight-year-old girl.’ The victim was from the UK and showed ‘graphic detail’ of ‘serious sexual offences’ against her.

Langham was sentenced to ten months in prison and was placed on the sexual offenders register for ten years. His sentence was reduced to six months on appeal.

Last year the BBC was criticised for putting all the shows of ‘In The Thick of It’ back in on the BBC iPlayer.

Stuart Hall 

Presenter Stuart Hall first worked his way up the BBC’s ranks by presenting a range of regional programmes in the northwest of England.

His big break came in 1972, when he started presenting ‘It’s a Knockout’ on BBC 1. He fronted the prgramme for ten years before becoming the original host of A Question of Sport.

Hall was even given an OBE in the 2012 New Year’s honours.

But that same year saw his first accuser contact a journalist and claim she had been groomed and sexually abused by Hall in the 1970s. She said she wanted to come forward after the Jeremy Savile scandal and amid anger at his OBE.

In December 2012 police arrested Hall and he was charged with counts of indecent assault against a 16 or 17-year-old in 1974, a nine-year-old girl in 1983 and a 13-year-old in 1984.

Just a month later in January 2013, Hall was charged with raping a 22-year-old woman in 1976 and indecently assaulting ten more girls, aged from 9 to 17 years old, between 1967 and 1986.

In April 2013, Hall pleaded guilty to 14 charges of indecent assault against 13 girls aged between nine and 17.

In October of the same year police confirmed he had been charged with 16 further offences, including the rape of a 12-year-old girl.

He admitted one charge, was convicted of two counts of indecent assault against a 13-year-old but not guilty of 15 further charges.

In 2013 he was jailed for 30 months before a judge at his second trial jailed him for two-and-a-half years. He has since been released from prison.

Rolf Harris 

The following year children’s presenter and entertainer Rolf Harris was jailed five years and nine months after he was convicted of 12 charges of indecent assault against four girls – including one aged seven.

Harris, who was Australian, launched his career making songs and soon became a UK TV personality through shows such as Animal Hospital.

He even hosted an educational programme for five to eight year olds in which he advised them on how to avoid situations where they might be vulnerable to sexual abuse.

But his prominent career at the BBC came to an end after being charged with nine counts of indecent assault dating to the 1980s, involving two girls between 14 and 16 years old, and four counts alleging production of indecent child images in 2012.

He was later also charged with three further charges of sexual assault. The CPS said that the new charges were of alleged assault against females aged nineteen in 1984, aged seven or eight in 1968 or 1969, and aged fourteen in 1975.

Harris was ultimately convicted of all 12 charges of indecent assault and sentenced to five years and nine months in prison.

In 2014 Vanessa Feltz also accused Harris of sexual assault when she interviewed him live on air, and Linda Nolan also claimed he groped her when she was 15.

In 2017, one conviction was overturned concerning an alleged assault on an eight-year-old girl on the grounds it was unsafe.

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