2023-07-10 13:14:00
The presenter is accused by a woman of having given tens of thousands of pounds to her 17-year-old child for photos.
By VD with AFP
The Sun says the presenter is “one of the BBC’s biggest stars”. (Illustrative photo). © Christoph Meyer / dpa / Christoph Meyer/dpa Published on 07/10/2023 at 15:14
The BBC, the British public broadcasting giant, is under pressure on Monday after accusations that one of its star presenters paid a young person, a minor at the start of the incident, to send him pornographic photos. The presenter, whose name has not been revealed, was suspended on Sunday.
Friday night, the tabloid The Sun published the testimony of a mother, accusing this star presenter, without naming him, of having given, in exchange for photos of a sexual nature, several tens of thousands of pounds to her then 17-year-old child, without specify whether it is a girl or a boy.
‘One of the BBC’s biggest stars’
The mother accused the presenter of having “destroyed the life” of her child, now 20, who in three years had become “a ghost addicted to crack”. According to the daily, the family contacted the BBC on May 19 to inform them of the situation, but the presenter remained on the air for several more weeks. Monday, The Sun claims the presenter, ‘one of the BBC’s biggest stars’, made ‘two panicked calls’ to the youngster last week. He would have asked her to call her mother so that she could “stop the investigation”.
READ ALSOUK: panic at the BBC
The case has been in the UK media headlines over the weekend, prompting several BBC stars to speak out to say they are not the presenter at the center of the charges. The political class reacted strongly. On Monday on the BBC, Justice Minister Alex Chalk questioned the BBC’s decision not to suspend the presenter at the first revelations. “Once such serious and concerning allegations are made and the BBC is made aware of them, I expect there to be a suspension,” he said.
The BBC has launched an internal investigation
Shortly after an emergency telephone call between Culture Minister Lucy Frazer and the chief executive of the public broadcasting giant Tim Davie, the BBC said in a statement on Sunday that “a male member of its staff has been suspended and that the group “strive to establish the facts as quickly as possible”.
On Sunday evening, London police said they had been made aware of the case by the BBC “but no formal referrals or allegations have been made”. The BBC has already been hit by serious sex scandals. At the forefront of which is the Jimmy Savile affair, which broke out in 2012, a year after the death of this star animator. This man was a sexual predator, perpetrator of rape and sexual assault on minors for decades.
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