The implosion of a UK media star leaves mighty BBC reeling in crisis

Nothing titillates the British people more than a salacious scandal. They like to pose as prudes but it's all pretence. For an entire week, the whole of Britain was riveted by a prurient story of a media celebrity and his secret sexual shenanigans.

At the centre of it were two pillars of the British media establishment. On one hand was the BBC, which the Brits fondly call the Beeb. On the other was the country's raciest tabloid newspaper, the Sun. The main characters were a high-powered BBC presenter and a young man - with a drug habit - who he was allegedly paying money in exchange for sexually explicit photos. Both identities were kept anonymous. (Apparently there were two other boys involved, also unnamed).

The brutally competitive British media landscape exploded into a frenzy, with the Sun and its screaming headlines accusing the staid BBC of mishandling the matter and even insinuating there was a cover-up. This much was not in dispute: contacts between the presenter and the boy started when he was 17 and legally underage.

Come May this year, his mother made a complaint to the BBC about her son’s relationship with the star presenter. The nature of the complaint is a matter of speculation. Was it about the presenter's payments to the lad, which he was using to buy drugs? Or had the parent found out about the sexually suggestive photos? Whatever it was, BBC honchos assessed the substance of the complaint to be serious but then concluded it did not amount to illegality. The police, to whom the boy's stepfather had complained to first, had reached a similar conclusion.

Escalated matters

Last week, the young man's parents escalated matters when they took their story to the Sun. That's when all hell broke loose. The tabloid published lurid details about a photo found on the boy's phone of the BBC personality posing in his underwear. Eish! Hadn't the BBC known about that? No, the broadcaster carefully replied, the Sun's new angle was "of a very different nature" from the complaint they (BBC) had received. Undeterred, the Sun, quoting the boy's stepdad, had another blaring headline the following day: "The BBC are liars!" The tabloid warned it had more explosive revelations in store. For the Sun, the culprit was no longer the presenter, but the BBC itself.

Why was the BBC refusing to name their Mr Anonymous? The broadcaster insisted it was respecting their employee's privacy. But there was a more elemental reason. The Beeb could have gotten itself into serious legal jeopardy if they exposed their man unless he had been lawfully adjudged guilty. Nonetheless he was put on suspension as an internal investigation was launched. Of course within the BBC everybody knew who he was. For much of the British public, he remained a mystery. Yet the public was bound to know who Mr Anonymous was. By way of deduction, they would figure out which prominent BBC presenter had been put off air.

By then, the drama and intrigue had taken a life of their own. Social media was in a orgy. The guessing game on who the BBC pervert was had gone crazy. Names were being bandied around willy-nilly, with no care about defamation (Boy, the UK's defamation laws are strict). There was a process of elimination underway. Names of random BBC stars would be posted on Twitter. They would come out and deny involvement. Social media is relentless. With no rules. Emotions and innuendo were driving the story. Not facts.

The mainstream print and broadcast media know better the consequences of libel, and so didn't unmask the BBC man. Some MPs who already knew who he was wanted to "out" him in the House of Commons. MPs can do so without legal trouble because they enjoy immunity. But on being warned this would only aggravate the situation, they held back.

Amid the hullabaloo, the boy in the thick of the saga dropped a bombshell. Through a lawyer, he charged that the claims made by his mother against his BBC friend were "rubbish." Nothing inappropriate happened, he insisted. Questions started to swirl. Mmm, where did the lawyer materialise from? Was he perhaps being paid for by the presenter? What about the Sun? If it had indeed obtained lewd photos sent to the teen by the BBC man, why wasn't it publishing them? It is difficult to believe the tabloid would be squeamish about it when it regularly displays photos of half-nude girls on its pages.

Internal investigation

Enter the police. They asked the BBC to pause its internal investigation to allow them conduct an inquiry. They were still not calling it a criminal investigation. Eventually, they said they found no evidence of a crime having been committed. (Funny, what exactly was the presenter doing with a boy of 17?)

Inevitably, the BBC has taken an awful beating. One problem is how it handles public complaints. Why is the process opaque? Most damaging is the perception the broadcaster pampers its star presenters too much, even when they've become radioactive. That's not a nice place for the Beeb to be.

POSTCRIPT: On Wednesday evening, Mr Anonymous was finally revealed, via a statement from his wife soon after the police had cleared him. He’s Huw Edwards, an iconic name in British broadcasting.  Edwards is akin to what Leonard Mambo Mbotela was to Kenyan radio listeners in my mother’s generation.

Apparently, Edwards has been suffering from depression for years. The terrible pressure of the week's happenings had worsened his condition. He's now receiving in-patient hospital care. Sanctimoniously, the Sun announced it would publish no further exposés on him. Pointedly, it did not retract anything it had already published about him. It even offered to pass on a confidential dossier it said it had to the BBC's restarted internal investigation. Ultimately this was a cautionary tale of how a celebrated career can be ruined either by personal misconduct or scandal.

* * * * * *

Reality check: Leaders who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say - Andy Stanley.