Former BBC presenter Huw Edwards will next appear in court on 16 September after pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children

Huw Edwards drank “many glasses of champagne” before going on TV to host BBC News At Ten and mocked a colleague, a journalist friend claims.

The 62-year-old pleaded guilty yesterday (July 31) to making indecent images of children in court after he was exposed via a WhatsApp group.

Now, giving an insight into the Welshman’s life away from the cameras, a journalist has shed light on their many meetings together.

During one exchange, The Times’ Andrew Billen said he was “astonished” by Edwards’ indiscretion when he called a colleague “a monster” and also accused another host of “greed”.

The journalist said: “I was also taken aback by how many glasses of champagne he drank —and bought me, not on expenses. My astonishment turned to admiration when 6pm approached and he said he had better go over the road and prepare for the News at Ten.”

According to Andrew, Edwards assured him that after three espressos and three pints of water, he would be fine to present the news as normal.

“And he was,” the journalist recalled. “I found his humour, candour and recklessness endearing. But he was also paranoid about his shelf-life as he entered his sixties. The hardest thing about reaching the top was staying there.”

His final meeting with Edwards, who he believed came across as a happily married father of five, was before the initial scandal hit the headlines last year.

Andrew claimed the broadcaster had supposedly been contemplating giving up his long-standing career, before Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general, persuaded him to stay.

After agreeing to continue in his hot seat, Edwards then received an apparent £40,000 pay rise. Andrew added: “So once more the BBC thought him indispensable — except no one is, even if it took two anchors to replace him on the recent general election results programme.”

The presenter was suspended by the BBC in July 2023 following reports that he had paid a young person for sexually explicit images.

The Metropolitan Police later said they had found no evidence of criminal behaviour in relation to those allegations.

The presenter pleaded guilty on Wednesday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court to three counts of making indecent images of children, in a non-related case.

He reportedly accessed indecent images of children as young as seven on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021, which police say were sent to him by a convicted paedophile.

Speaking in Edwards’ defence, his barrister Philip Evans KC said: “There’s no suggestion in this case that Mr Edwards has… in the traditional sense of the word, created any image of any sort.

It is important also to remember for context that devices, Mr Edwards’ devices, have been seized, have been searched, and there’s nothing in those devices.

“It is only the images that are the subject of the charges that came via a WhatsApp chat. Mr Edwards did not keep any images, did not send any to anyone else, and did not and has not sought similar images from anywhere else.”

Mr Evans went on to say that Edwards had also experienced “both mental and physical” health issues.

The BBC has also since issued a lengthy statement, in which they condemned his “abhorrent behaviour” and clarified that he was “no longer an employee of the BBC”. Edwards will next appear in court on 16 September.