Met police ask BBC to pause investigation into suspended presenter | BBC

The Metropolitan police have asked the BBC to pause its investigation into a suspended male presenter, while specialist officers decide if there is any justification for a criminal investigation.

The BBC director general, Tim Davie, said its corporate investigations team met police officers on Monday and the Met had taken control of the inquiry: “The BBC has been asked to pause its own investigation work,” he added.

The police are still at the “scoping” stage of their inquiries and they may decide no formal investigation is required.

Davie said the BBC was conducting its inquiries with “utmost diligence” while “sensibly handling duty of care issues”, including protecting the privacy of all the individuals involved. He also confirmed the BBC would hand over to the police any material it held on the suspended presenter, while reviewing its protocols and procedures for reporting allegations.

The comments were made while Davie took questions from journalists at the launch of the BBC’s annual report. The off-camera event was scheduled long before one of the broadcaster’s leading male presenters was suspended over allegations he spent £35,000 buying explicit images from a young person.

The BBC also published its own detailed timeline of the events leading to the suspension of the presenter, which claimed a member of the young person’s family initially tried to make a complaint via a physical BBC office – and later failed to return phone calls from BBC investigators.

The young person’s mother later took the allegations to the Sun newspaper, claiming payments from the BBC presenter helped fund her child’s crack cocaine habit. She alleged her child was 17 years old when they started talking online with the BBC employee.

The young person, now 20, has issued a statement distancing themselves from their mother and said the key allegations were “rubbish”.

The young person’s lawyer said: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing inappropriate or unlawful has taken place between our client and the BBC personality and the allegations reported in the Sun newspaper are rubbish.”

The lawyer also suggested they told the Sun the story was wrong but the newspaper did not include the denial in its reporting.

If the young person sent the BBC presenter any explicit photos when they were 17, it is possible a serious criminal offence involving child sexual abuse was committed. But if the young person waited until they were 18 to send any explicit pictures, they would have legally been an adult and it is substantially less likely that a criminal offence was committed.

The BBC presenter has not been named in the mainstream media, partly due to the increasingly strong privacy laws in England and Wales.

The BBC’s annual report also revealed the salaries of many of the BBC’s leading presenters, while also showing how the broadcaster is struggling to connect with youth audiences and facing a drop in the number of British households paying the licence fee.

Davie defended the continuing need for the corporation, saying: “Despite all the storms and challenges, the need for a strong and thriving BBC is greater than ever. In a world of polarisation, surely we are fighting for something very important.”

The young person’s lawyer told BBC News they had provided a similar denial to the Sun before the publication of the original story, telling the tabloid there was “no truth” to the article they were preparing to publish. The tabloid pressed ahead, without including any denial from the young person.

A spokesperson for the Sun said: “We have reported a story about two very concerned parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and the welfare of their child. Their complaint was not acted upon by the BBC. We have seen evidence that supports their concerns. It’s now for the BBC to properly investigate.”