His sentence requires the completion of a sex offender treatment program and rehabilitation. Edwards was previously the BBC’s highest-paid journalist, and pleaded guilty in July to having 41 indecent images of children.
Chief magistrate Paul Goldspring said of the prominent and now disgraced ex-BBC personality in court: “It is not an exaggeration to say your long-earned reputation is in tatters,” the magistrate said.
The court had previously heard that Edwards had engaged in online chat with a man on WhatsApp, who sent him 377 sexual images, 41 of which were indecent images of children.
The man who sent Edwards the images is a convicted pedophile. Edwards sent him hundreds of pounds for the images. Seven of the shared images were regarded as the most serious type of indecent child image under English law.
Most of the children featured were estimated to be between 13 and 15 years old. One child was aged between seven and nine. The alleged offenses were committed between December 2020 and August 2021, according to the Crown Prosecution Service.
The court previously heard that Edwards told a man on WhatsApp not to send him underage images after the man asked if the images he was sending were too young.
No more illegal images were sent after that, the court heard, but the pair were said to continue exchanging legal pornographic images until April 2022.
Edwards is “truly sorry he has committed these offenses” his defense lawyer told the court. He added “He recognizes the repugnant nature of such indecent images and the hurt that is done to those who appear in such images.”
Edwards presented both the News at Six and the BBC’s flagship News at Ten and was regularly the face of BBC News specials. The anchor was suspended by the BBC in July 2023 and arrested four months later, but only stepped down from his role in late April this year.
He was kept on the BBC’s payroll during this time, receiving £200,000 in the months between his arrest and his resignation. The corporation asked Edwards to hand back that portion of his salary.
