BBC ends loophole allowing suspended stars to stay on full pay after Huw Edwards scandal

Bosses have revised the rules that allows suspended staff to continue earning their full salary indefinitely. It comes after Huw Edwards received his full salary for five months after his arrest

A BBC loophole allowing suspended stars to stay on full pay has been closed following the Huw Edwards scandal.

Bosses at the corporation have revised the rules that allowed the disgraced ex-newsreader, and other unwell suspended staff, to continue earning their full salary indefinitely.

This applied even if the employee dragged out the process by refusing to cooperate with an internal misconduct investigation.

The move comes after Edwards, who admitted making indecent images of children last year, received his full salary for five months after his arrest.

Suspended staff will now receive 18 weeks’ full pay and nine weeks at half their salary, under the BBC’s new policy.

The Beeb said that its suspension pay policy has now been brought in line with its sick pay policy.

Edwards, the former lead anchor of BBC News at Ten, earned more than £475,000 a year. His lawyers are understood to have told the BBC that he was too unwell to engage with the disciplinary process.

They wrote to the BBC: “Huw is a BBC employee who has not been charged with anything. In the circumstances, and whilst the case remains under investigation, it is inappropriate both for Huw to be asked about, and for him to have to comment on, what has been set out in your email.”

This allowed Edwards to continue receiving his salary after his arrest in November 2023. The BBC paid Edwards, 63, until he resigned in April last year, three months before he pleaded guilty to viewing 41 illegal images. He received a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

BBC chiefs in April vowed to “draw a line in the sand” after an independent review of staff behaviour.

The probe, launched in the wake of the Huw Edwards scandal, found the corporation does not have a “toxic culture”.

But it said there was a “minority of people who behave unacceptably and whose behaviour is not addressed”.

Meanwhile, earlier this year it emerged that Edwards has been edited out of an episode of Doctor Who. The BBC took it off the iPlayer last year after he admitted having indecent images of children.

In the original version, Edwards’ voice can be heard in a televised BBC news report. The instalment, titled Fear Her, now has a disclaimer saying: “This programme has been edited since broadcast.”

Edwards’ voice was replaced with that of a female actor.

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