Jeremy Vine forces Twitter user to pay out after claiming he was at centre of BBC scandal
Man apologised for ‘entirely baseless’ claims
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Your support makes all the difference.Jeremy Vine has received a libel pay-out from a Twitter user who wrongly claimed he was at the centre of the latest BBC scandal.
The BBC Radio 2 presenter’s name was one of several to trend on social media last weekend after The Sun published a story claiming that an unnamed BBC presenter had paid £35,000 to a young person, over a three-year period, in exchange for sexually explicit images.
Huw Edwards was later revealed by his wife as the person at the centre of the story, but not before Vine was misidentified as the presenter online.
“On 8 July @AndyPlumb4 libelled me by alleging that I was the BBC presenter at the heart of a story in The Sun that day,” Vine wrote on Twitter on Sunday (16 July).
“He has now acknowledged that he was wrong, and has apologised. At my request, he has also agreed to pay £1,000 to [motor neurone disease association] @mndassoc rather than paying damages.”
Plumb, who describes himself as a “patriot and proud Brit” who doesn’t “do small talk” on his Twitter profile, made a public apology to Vine and said his “defamatory” statement about the broadcaster was “entirely baseless”.
The statement released by Flind, naming Edwards, stated that her husband is “suffering from serious mental health issues” and is now “receiving inpatient hospital care where he will stay for the foreseeable future”.
In recent days, The Sun newspaper – which originally broke the allegations – has been criticised for a headline stating that the presenter “could be charged by cops and face years in prison”, when the police have in fact found no evidence of criminality.
On Wednesday 12 July, The Sun issued a statement saying that it would cooperate with the BBC’s internal investigation process, adding: “The Sun has no plans to publish further allegations. We must also re-emphasise that The Sun at no point in our original story alleged criminality and also took the decision neither to name Mr Edwards nor the young person involved in the allegations.
“Suggestions about possible criminality were first made at a later date by other media outlets, including the BBC.
“From the outset, we have reported a story about two very concerned and frustrated parents who made a complaint to the BBC about the behaviour of a presenter and payments from him that fuelled the drug habit of a young person.
“We reported that the parents had already been to the police who said that they couldn’t help. The parents then made a complaint to the BBC which was not acted upon. It is now for the BBC to properly investigate.”
The family of Edwards are receiving crisis management advice from former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, it has been reported.
Meanwhile, friends and peers of Edwards have rallied behind the BBC presenter after a poll showed viewers want him back on air.