Young person at centre of BBC controversy says claims against presenter are 'rubbish'

Metropolitan Police say inquiries are ongoing to establish any evidence of criminal offence

The teenager at the centre of the BBC controversy said nothing inappropriate or unlawful happened with the unnamed presenter and that the allegations are “rubbish”, their lawyer said in a letter to the broadcaster.

Police are carrying out further inquiries to establish whether any crime has been committed after BBC representatives met with detectives on Monday morning.

The force said they are assessing the information discussed at the meeting but have not yet launched an investigation following allegations the presenter paid a teenager tens of thousands of pounds for sexually explicit images.

A male member of BBC staff has been suspended following the claims that he paid a young person around £35,000 over three years, from the age of 17, for explicit images.

The Sun reported on Monday that the presenter had made “panicked” calls to the person last week after the allegations became known.

In a letter reported by BBC News At Six, the young person said via a lawyer: “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 corporation said it had been investigating a complaint since May, and that new claims of a “different nature” were brought to it on Thursday.

Members of the media report from outside BBC Broadcasting house, in central London, after a male presenter was suspended following allegations that he paid a teenager tens of thousands of pounds for sexually explicit images. Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

As well as being in touch with the police, the BBC is carrying out its own inquiries and talking to the young person’s family.

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement: “Detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command met with representatives from the BBC on the morning of July 10. The meeting took place virtually.

“They are assessing the information discussed at the meeting and further enquiries are taking place to establish whether there is evidence of a criminal offence being committed.

“There is no investigation at this time.”

BBC director-general Tim Davie is due to face the media on Tuesday for a scheduled briefing following the release of the corporation’s annual report.

In a note to staff on Sunday, he said: “The BBC became aware of a complaint in May; the BBC investigations team have been looking into this since it was raised and have been actively following up.

“New allegations, of a different nature, were put to us on Thursday, and, in addition to our own inquiries, we have also been in touch with external authorities, in line with our protocols.

“I can also confirm that we have suspended a member of staff.”

He added: “By law, individuals are entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, which is making this situation more complex. I also want to be very clear that I am wholly condemning the unsubstantiated rumours being made on the internet about some of our presenting talent.

“We are in contact with the family referenced in the media reports. I want to assure you that we are working rapidly to establish the facts and to ensure that these matters are handled fairly and with care, including by external authorities where appropriate.”

The teenager’s mother told The Sun newspaper she saw a picture of the presenter on her child’s phone “sitting on a sofa in his house in his underwear”.

The mother said she was told it was “a picture from some kind of video call” and looked like he was “getting ready for my child to perform for him”.

The family were said to have complained to the BBC on May 19, but allegedly became frustrated that the star remained on air.

On Monday, the newspaper reported that the presenter had made “panicked” calls to the young person following the allegations, claiming that he asked “What have you done?” and told them to tell their mother to stop the investigation.

Gary Lineker, Rylan Clark, Jeremy Vine and Nicky Campbell are among the BBC stars to have publicly stated that they are not the presenter in question.

Campbell suggested he had contacted police about being falsely mentioned online in connection with the story.

He tweeted a screenshot which featured the Metropolitan Police logo and the words: “Thank you for contacting the Metropolitan Police Service to report your crime.”

“I think it’s important to take a stand. There’s just too many of these people on social media. Thanks for your support friends,” he wrote.

Mounting pressure

Monday saw mounting pressure on executives at the BBC over their handling of the allegations, with a senior UK Government minister indicating that an investigation could be launched into how the corporation has dealt with the issue.

The BBC has said it had been investigating a complaint since May 19, when it was first made aware of complaints about the presenter’s behaviour. Mr Davie has said new allegations of a "different nature" were brought to its attention on July 6, the day before The Sun’s initial story was published.

Justice secretary Alex Chalk has called on the BBC to “get their house in order” and look at the “chronology” of the allegations to determine “who knew what and when”. He said the public would “expect allegations of that nature to be dealt with very robustly and promptly”, telling Sky News on Monday that “it may be that, in the fullness of time, there will need to be an investigation about how this allegation was handled”.

Downing Street said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had “full confidence” in Mr Davie, and that culture secretary Lucy Frazer would keep a “close watch” on the handling of the claims. “Obviously these allegations are concerning,” Mr Sunak’s official spokesman said.

The BBC has reported Mr Davie was not personally made aware of the complaint against the presenter until Thursday last week. However, Mr Chalk said claims the presenter had been allowed to stay on air after the initial complaint were “astonishing”, adding: “I don’t know precisely what was said, and that is why there needs to be a full discussion of this in the fullness of time.”

Robert Beveridge, professor of media policy and regulation at the University of Sassari, who sat on the former BBC Audience Council for Scotland, described the situation facing the corporation as “another fine mess and one which will be used again by enemies of the BBC”.

He said while the allegations against the unnamed presenter have yet to be substantiated, there were questions for senior management at the BBC over how they have handled the incident to date, describing it as a “baptism of fire” for whoever replaces Richard Sharp as the BBC chairman, and a situation that had left Mr Davie’s coat “on a shoogly peg”.

“Now it will be the old story,” he told The Scotsman. “Who knew what, and when, and was there an attempt to cover up? Why the delay, even allowing for the need to respect privacy and defamation and employment law? At the very least, we need to know if Davie knew about the complaint in mid May and if not, why not?”

Sir Craig Oliver, a former senior editor at BBC News, said the timing of the suspension was also under scrutiny. “The key question that will come out of all of this, when there is an investigation into it, is why when the BBC heard new allegations on Thursday, which they say were of a more serious nature, they did not suspend the presenter then and waited until Sunday in order to do it,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Other media experts said the sooner the situation was dealt with the better, given the wider pressures facing the BBC. David Hutchison, honorary professor in media policy at Glasgow Caledonian University and a former member of the BBC's General Advisory Council, said there was a vital need for a debate about how the BBC’s finances can be restored following the licence fee freeze.

“It needs to be constantly restated that the decision by the present government to freeze the fee at a time of high inflation means that the corporation is having to cut programming when there is substantial competition, not only from other broadcasters, but also from streaming services,” he said.

A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC first became aware of a complaint in May. New allegations were put to us on Thursday of a different nature and, in addition to our own inquiries, we have also been in touch with external authorities, in line with our protocols.

“We can also confirm a male member of staff has been suspended. We expect to be in a position to provide a further update in the coming days as the process continues. The BBC board will continue to be kept up to date.”