Huw Edwards in court after admitting accessing indecent images of children

Huw Edwards has appeared in court after admitting accessing indecent photographs of children as young as seven.

The former BBC presenter sent hundreds of pounds to a convicted paedophile “apparently off the back of [him] sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards”, a court has heard.

Opening the case against Edwards at Westminster magistrates court, prosecutor Ian Hope said: “It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature.

“It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money – low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis – to Alex Williams, which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.

“Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.”

Hope continued: “From that chat in December 2020, Alex Williams said that he had ‘a file of vids and pics for you of someone special’.

“Mr Edwards immediately queried who the subject was and was then sent three images of seemingly the same person, from two of which images the subject’s age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16.

“These two were category C indecent images of children in which the child was exposing his penis.

“Alex Williams stated that he had ‘12 videos and 42 pics I’ve sent you a video of him before’.

“Shortly after Alex Williams asked: ‘Want me to send you the full file?’ Mr Edwards responded: ‘Yes xxx…’ immediately following which Alex Williams sent to Mr Edwards around 30 attachments, about half of which were category C indecent images of children.”

The hearing continues.