The BBC’s main primetime news presenter Huw Edwards and his family are receiving advice from former News of the World tabloid editor Andy Coulson, The Guardian reports.
The paper states that Edwards’ wife Vicky Flind – herself a TV producer – consulted Coulson before issuing her statement identifying her husband on Wednesday evening.
The presenter is currently in hospital, according to his wife, following allegations that he had paid £35,000 for inappropriate pictures from a teenage user of crack cocaine.
Coulson runs a PR agency specialising in crisis management. He previously edited News of the World between 2003 and 2007, and went on to become then-prime minister David Cameron’s director communications. He was jailed in 2014 for hacking offences.
His support for Edwards puts him in opposition to his former boss, Rupert Murdoch, boss of News UK and owner of The Sun newspaper, which first published the allegations but is facing backlash in some quarters, following the Met police’s decision not to pursue a criminal inquiry.
The Sun said yesterday that its original story was in the public interest because it gave a “voice to two worried parents.”
While Edwards has not yet spoken publicly, his former colleague Jon Sopel, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
“We’ve had contact, obviously not since he has been hospitalised. He was very angry, I think he felt very let down by what had happened in The Sun, he was furious with their coverage. Not overly impressed with the BBC’s coverage either. Anyone that knows him is just wishing him well.”