Farrukh Dhondy | A sordid tale in UK as top BBC presenter lands in huge scandal

“The heart is merely a muscle It cannot be broken But lovers say it can To feel its pain as a token Of the suffering that’s caused When continuity breaks Through jealousy, betrayal Or emotional earthquakes…” From Khali Pilee Bom, by Bachchoo Huw Edwards, the chief and respected presenter of the BBC’s flagship Ten O’clock News, a singular summary of the world each day, is now reported to be in a mental health institution. The people involved weren’t named by The Sun, which only said that a prominent BBC presenter was involved in soliciting lewd pornographic pictures from a young person, whose gender was not specified, and that this presenter had paid the young person £35,000 over the years. Several of them scrambled to deny that they were -- on their Twitter, etc, accounts and some even reached for their lawyers and publicists to say “It’s not me, I swear!” A radio presenter called Jeremy Vine gave a TV interview which called on the unnamed presenter to “out” himself so as to stop, out of decency and compassion, the speculation about other colleagues of his being the suspects in his case. The BBC said it couldn’t reveal the presenter’s identity for legal reasons, but on Wednesday, after five days of scandal and news turmoil and speculation, Huw Edwards’ wife identified him as the presenter in question.