The Huw Edwards files: behind the scenes at the BBC
An hour before Huw Edwards was due to be sentenced last September, an ominous email landed in the inbox of the BBC director-general, Tim Davie. Titled 'private and confidential', it revealed that a complaint had been made about the news anchor's conduct in the aftermath of the Jimmy Savile scandal in 2012 — a decade before Edwards was suspended. Davie replied three minutes later.
Since Edwards was taken off air in July 2023, victims, whistleblowers, BBC staff and the public have expressed frustration about the veil of secrecy that has hung over the corporation's handling of the scandal. The BBC has refused to say how many complaints it has received about Edwards. Bosses have never published the findings of an internal inquiry into his behaviour.
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The Guardian
12 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Flight 149: Hostage of War review – a tale so staggering you couldn't write it
If it were a work of fiction, the story of Flight 149 would probably be deemed too horrifying – or too unbelievable – for television. Indeed, as a documentary interspersed with dramatic reconstructions, at points it is almost unbearable to watch. But it is a crucial piece of work: a one-off film that goes deep into a bizarre and increasingly hideous ordeal to ask how and why it happened. On 2 August 1990, a British Airways plane carrying nearly 400 passengers and crew from London to Kuala Lumpur touched down for a scheduled stopover in Kuwait. Those on board knew nothing of the unfolding Iraqi invasion of the country and the brutality Saddam Hussein was inflicting on his neighbours (this would, of course, soon lead to the Gulf war). British Airways maintains that it, too, was unaware of what was taking place, while the British government said it didn't know what was happening until after the plane had landed. Later, it would emerge that it had, in fact, received information before the plane had reached the terminal, but that it wasn't shared with the airline. Staggeringly, many of those on board would spend the next four months in the country, human shields in an unfurling international conflict, with no clear route home. Charlie Kristiansson, a former BA steward, recalls the place looking 'like the gates of hell had opened', as bombs began to explode around them. Initially, the passengers were put up in a plush hotel – a cocoon of sorts, he says. But as time went on, they were dispatched to various squalid locations, including a bungalow where the walls were smothered in excrement. The goal of Jenny Ash's documentary – much like the multi-Bafta-winning Mr Bates Vs the Post Office – is as much to entertain as to shine a light on what may be a colossal miscarriage of justice. Many of the interviewees here don't simply address a faceless producer behind a camera – they sit face to face with lawyers from the human rights firm McCue Jury & Partners. Last year, these testimonies were used to construct a class-action lawsuit against BA and the government. The government could have diverted Flight 149, but – for reasons that remain unclear – didn't. Stephen Davis, an investigative journalist who reported on the story for the Independent on Sunday at the time, has helped to illuminate what else may have been going on. Namely, allegations that the flight was used to aid a British intelligence operation. There are interviews here with Margaret Thatcher's former foreign affairs private secretary Charles Powell and the former US diplomat Barbara Bodine. These are bolstered by archive material that transports viewers back to the chaos unfolding on news bulletins and even Teletext. But the real heft comes from the survivors' stories, which sit side by side with reconstructions that feel hazy and incredibly unnerving and which mirror the subjects' dissociation. Jennifer Chappell, then 12, recalls seeing the lyrics of the Guns N' Roses song Paradise City on the walls of the military compound where she and her family were held. The moment is recreated by a young actor (Orla Taylor), who lies on a bed in the foetal position singing along to Axl Rose ('Oh, won't you please take me home?'). Elsewhere, Kristiansson flinches as he relives the savage sexual assault he was subjected to by an Iraqi soldier, as we are drawn, flashback-like, into the kind of stark tower block where it happened. Barry Manners, separated from his partner, Anthony Yong, in excruciating circumstances, recalls the places he would go in his brain to escape the horror of being locked in a dark room at the site of a dam, not knowing whether it was night or day. Viewers see the couple as they would have been in another life, listening to jazz on a beach in Thailand. Yong died not long after returning to the UK, his already poor health exacerbated by the nightmare of it all. Unsurprisingly, the passengers of Flight 149 think about what happened every day. Chappell has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and has attempted to kill herself. The nearest we get to a happy ending is when Deborah Saloom, an American passenger, recounts her reunion with her husband, known as B George, whom she feared she would never see again (women and children were let out of the country before the men). Stress is engraved into the faces of practically every person we see on screen. Then head of security at Kuwait airport, Mohammad Al-Dossari, says the BA passengers were 'used like chess pieces'. Now, what they desperately want to know is what the people moving those pieces were thinking. Or, as Manners puts it: 'Why the fuck was I in this situation in the first place?' Even if we don't get all the answers, this is a truly excellent place to start. Flight 149: Hostage of War aired on Sky Documentaries and is available on Now In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
Times
13 minutes ago
- Times
Public will pay price for police funding squeeze, say chiefs
Officer numbers will have to be cut as the public 'pay the price' for the lack of funding for policing in the spending review, police chiefs said. Sir Keir Starmer's pledge to restore neighbourhood policing is 'some way off' they said, after Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced that police funding would increase by £2.1 billion between 2026 and 2029 — an average real-terms increase of 1.7 per cent. The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said this would leave a shortfall of £1.2 billion and lead to forces 'cutting headcount to balance the books'. The Police Federation said the public would 'pay the price', while the Police Superintendents' Association (PSA) accused the government of a 'shameful abandonment of the police service'. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is understood to be planning to review police funding in the autumn, when she will pressure the chancellor for extra money to meet Labour's pledge to recruit 13,000 police officers. Police chiefs said that without extra funding, the money would have to be found through rises in council tax or cuts to other policing services. Gavin Stephens, the NPCC chairman, said the funding rise would 'cover little more than annual inflationary pay increases' and that progress on the prime minister's key missions, such as halving violence against women and cutting knife crime, would be slower. Sir Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said police numbers would fall, adding: 'I remain concerned that this spending review could result in insufficient funding for the Met and fewer police officers.' Starmer's promise to recruit 13,000 neighbourhood police officers was one of Labour's flagship policies in last year's general election. Paul Sanford, chairman of the NPCC's finance co-ordination committee, said: 'While we are looking at a 1.7 per cent increase, once pay is accounted for, once our non-pay pressures are accounted for, we think it will be incredibly difficult for the commitment to deliver the additional 13,000 neighbourhood police officers within this funding envelope. 'We've made some progress. We have a good 3,000 already recruited but based on this settlement, that does look a real challenge for us … Certainly we are going to be some way off unless some significant levers are going to be pulled. Any further progress towards the 13,000 without new money would only come from making savings in our budgets.' Sanford said it was impossible to predict what the neighbourhood policing shortfall would be. Labour's initial announcement said the 13,000 officers would comprise 4,000 police community service officers, 3,000 special constables, 3,000 existing officers and 3,000 new police constables. Stephens added that 'the size and shape of the police workforce will inevitably have to change'. He said: 'The amount falls far short of what is required to fund the government's ambitions and maintain our existing workforce. This is against a backdrop of increasing crime rates, with new and escalating threats from organised crime and hostile states, and more offenders being managed in the community as a result of an overstretched criminal justice system.' Sanford said the overhaul of sentencing laws, which will scrap short prison sentences and release some prisoners after they have served just a third of their sentence, would pile further pressure on police budgets. Additional investment in the Probation Service to monitor offenders would take time to phase in, he said, leaving police to deal with the consequences of more criminals on the streets. 'There isn't any additional money to deal with that. This will increase the workload of police officers.' Tiff Lynch, acting national chairwoman of the Police Federation, accused the chancellor of failing to listen to police officers or the home secretary. She said: 'This spending review should have been a turning point after 15 years of austerity that has left policing, and police officers, broken. Instead, the cuts will continue — and it's the public who will pay the price. 'As rank-and-file officers kit up for night duty this evening, they'll do so knowing exactly where they stand in the government's priorities. It is beyond insulting for cabinet ministers to call on police to 'do their bit' when officers are overworked, underpaid and under threat like never before. 'They are facing blades and bricks, managing mental health crises, while battling to protect their own, and carrying the weight of trauma and financial stress home with them every day.' Nick Smart, president of the PSA, said it was a 'shameful abandonment of the police service' and warned that the government was failing in its first duty of keeping public safe. He said: 'Today's funding announcement is a huge blow to the police service, which has once again been placed at the bottom of the government's list of priorities. It is the first duty of government to keep its citizens safe, yet today we see no evidence of a commitment to doing this. 'Many of the government's election pledges centred around a commitment to 'safer streets', promising the public that it would meet ambitious targets such as halving knife crime. Yet the lack of investment announced today means we will continue to struggle to deliver the basics, to maintain officer numbers, cover inflationary costs, cover pay awards and function as we are, let alone move forward on new public safety and transformation initiatives.'
Sky News
13 minutes ago
- Sky News
Ballymena riots latest: Fire started 'after vandalism' at leisure centre as water cannon deployed in third night of disorder in N Ireland
Disorder has broken out in Northern Ireland for the third successive night, after police said people are "waking up with genuine fear for their lives" following two nights of violence in Ballymena and other areas. Follow the latest.
