BBC broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire Wednesday had a slip of the tongue during her show,Newsnight —while talking about the controversy — in which she may have revealed the name of the unnamed BBC presenter, accused of paying thousands of pounds to a teenager in exchange for sex pictures.
A star BBC presenter had been taken off the air after the accusations surfaced last week in The Sun newspaper. The victim's mother revealed that the funds, totalling over £35,000, were utilised for cocaine addiction which devastated her child's life.
There has been yet no name revealed about the presenter by either BBC, The Sun, or the Metropolitan Police Department. But Derbyshire’s slip of the tongue in the video sparked speculations about a star BBC broadcaster Huw Edwards.
The family of the victim reported the incident to the BBC on May 19th, urgently requesting to intervene and put a halt to the presenter's financial transactions.
The identity of the teenager, who was reportedly 17 years old when the payments were made, also remains known.
The BBC acknowledged the severity of the allegations and affirmed its commitment to treating them with the utmost seriousness.
While explaining the scandal without naming the presenter, she said: "We do know that the BBC is in the middle of another crisis and big questions are being asked again about who — who knew what, when, and why the corporation is on the back foot."
The journalist correcting the word "who" twice saying it earlier otherwise and even stumbling on it led people on the internet to speculate about Huw Edwards.
Derbyshire also added while explaining further: "I'll be honest with you right now, we [the BBC] don't know if the claims from the mother of the young person who accused the famous name of paying thousands of pounds to her child in exchange for s*xual photos are true."
"Because, we — journalists who work at the BBC —haven’t seen any of the evidence The Sun says it has and we don’t know if the new claims tonight from lawyers representing the individual rubbishing what the mum has said are true either. BBC does not know the identity of that person and has not spoken directly to them," she added.
The other BBC stars are frustrated over the unnamed presenter, and they are feeling that the finger is pointed at some of them, forcing them to clear their names on social media.