edwards was suspended, and in november the police told the bbc he had been arrested on suspicion of serious offences. of serious offences in a separate case. that only became clear injuly this year when edwards pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children. the same month, the bbc annual report revealed that he had received a £40,000 pay increase up until his resignation in april. then, on monday, he was given a six—month suspended jail sentence. it is difficult to think of a more startling reversal of circumstances from respected newsreader to convicted criminal. he'll now go on the sex offenders register, offenders register. as the judge said, his reputation is in tatters. edwards breaking notjust the trust viewers placed in him, but the law. lucy manning reporting there. jan treasure wasn't happy with monday's coverage

across the bbc, as she wrote to us after watching the lunchtime news. meanwhile, some wider issues have also been exercising newswatch viewers over the past weeks and months. phehmie forder emailed us earlier in the summer to say... and sandra hume added... the bbc has asked huw edwards

to return the £200,000 he earned after being arrested in november, but he has not yet done so. should he, though, have been sacked at that time? director general tim davie was asked about that at a house of lords communications committee hearing last week. the police were, you know, giving us very clear instruction to keep confidential, as is, again, well documented and well reported. we knew the category, we had no knowledge at all of the specifics. and, you know, the decision which i stand by, by the way, was made in terms of to remain with the suspension. tim davie added in an interview this week that there was "shock and a lot of upset" within the bbc over huw edwards, and that people across the organisation feel "deeply, deeply let down." and the bbc put out a statement after monday's sentencing which read...

joining me now are the investigations editor of the website deadline, jake canter, and the journalism professor suzanne franks, who used to work here at the bbc. thank you both for coming on newswatch. jake, you were in court on monday. you've been covering this story. what did you make of the attention and coverage the bbc gave to the huw edwards case? well, you certainly can't accuse the bbc of covering this up or ignoring this story. they have given it full beam. there were two senior correspondents in the courtroom, lucy manning and dominic casciani. and you know, katie razzall, the media editor, has been reporting on it extensively. so you've had a lot of clout behind this story, and the bbc has given it plenty of airtime.

whether that has been commensurate with the stature of the story is an editorial decision for the bbc, but i think it's clear from some of the viewer feedback that you have had that bbc viewers feel very strongly about this as an issue. that has clearly been a huge breakdown in trust between huw edwards, who was this kind of hugely respected and prominent figure within our living rooms, and viewers feel very let down. suzanne, as jake was saying, the trust issue is really key. and huw edwards was the chosen face of bbc news. he fronted all the key national moments. how damaging has this been for trust in bbc news, do you think? oh, i think it's been very damaging. i mean, as you say, he was the face of the coronation, the queen's death and the sort of trusted person who broke you these, who came to you at these very important moments. and now he's been shown to be, you know, something completely different. completely different from what we've been told.

i think the bbc have, have really, you know, going to have to work hard now to rebuild trust and to maybe not look at sort of investing so much in one single, one single figure in this way, one single sort of male authority figure. well, it's interesting some commentators, you'll know, suzanne, have said it happened because of a kind of bbc cult around the highly paid news anchors. do you agree? 0h, absolutely. i think he was kind of too precious to criticise. i mean, it's very it reminded me a lot of the jimmy savile affair, you know that, i mean, who would dare to criticise a sort of national icon like that? and thenjust looking back, it was appalling what savile got away with. and it's also appalling what, what edwards thought he could get away with just because he was untouchable.

jake, do you think that huw edwards should have been sacked back in november, when the bbc were told by the police that he'd been arrested on serious issues? well, i think it's very easy with hindsight to say that he should have been sacked. the bbc was clearly presented with a very difficult problem. i'm sure they consulted widely on this and sought some expert advice. i think what the bbc perhaps could have done, looking at employment contracts and all the rest of it is whether they could have, in hindsight, stopped paying huw edwards when they found out about his arrest. and then if he had been later acquitted, then they could have reinstated and backdated some of that pay. i mean, that's certainly an option that tim davie has spoken about in recent days and said, well, maybe we could have been a bit more muscular on his salary and that may shape policy going forwards. going forwards in case that there's another example like this with a very senior presenter in the future. yeah, i mean, suzanne, you were nodding when you were listening to jake speaking there. huw edwards was, of course, paid for another six

months until he resigned, which included, of course, that £40,000 annual pay rise. what did you think of that decision making? i think if i'm correct, the pay rise had been agreed before he was arrested. so that's a slight twist on that. but i totally agree with jake. i think a very sensible compromise at the time would have been to say that we're just going to suspend the salary and then we'll pay it back to you. if you turn out to be innocent, of course, you're entitled to your backdated salary because now they look ridiculous, this sort of pleading with him to give the money back. it looks very weak. and jake, the bbc has had a number of sexual abuse scandals and commissioned reviews to learn lessons from them, going back tojimmy savile. are you surprised, in a way, that this huw edwards scandal unfolded as it has? well, i think this probably goes back to some of the abuse of power questions that we were talking about earlier. um, i think the bbc has acknowledged that the huw edwards case has raised

questions, perhaps troubling questions about the power accumulated by on air stars. and that will be scrutinised in more detail as part of a workplace culture review, which the bbc is gearing up to launch. it should have been launched already. but i expect an update on that in the coming days and weeks. and, you know, just beyond huw edwards in in recent beyond huw edwards in recent weeks, you've had similar questions aboutjermainejenas. and also strictly come dancing kind of falls into this area as well. so if you look across the bbc, it's notjust news. some of these questions some of these questions are plaguing the corporation are plaguing the corporation in other areas. in other areas. yeah, but can ijust say that yeah, but can ijust say that what's very interesting is that what's very interesting is that in the more recent cases, in the more recent cases, the bbc have acted the bbc have acted incredibly quickly. incredibly quickly. some people said they acted too some people said they acted too thank you both so much. quickly, whereas with quickly, whereas with huw edwards they were dithering huw edwards they were dithering and dragging theirfeet, and dragging theirfeet, in retrospect. in retrospect.

suzanne franks, jake canter, suzanne franks, jake canter, thank you both so much. before we go, some reaction to chris mason's report on wednesday about the prime minister's chief of staff, sue gray. i can reveal that she earns £170,000 a year. now, clearly that is a lot of money relative to the uk average salary, but it is considerably less than some in the public sector and many in the private sector at a similar level of seniority. blair adams was less than impressed by that revelation.

of bbc star salaries, including his own, of around £260,000, and added this story, at its crux is not about her £260,000, and added... thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions about what you see or hear on bbc news, on tv, radio, online and social email newswatch@bbc.co.uk or you can find us on x on @newswatchbbc. you can call us on 0370?0106676 and do have a look at previous interviews on our website, bbc.co.uk/newswatch. that's all from us for now. thank you forjoining us.

do think about getting in touch and perhaps even coming on the programme. we'll be back to hear more of your thoughts about how the bbc covers the news next week. goodbye. good afternoon. more scenes like those behind me expected notjust today, but for sunday and monday across england and wales in particular. but in contrast, we've got some decent spells of sunshine further north and west, particularly across highland and grampian, scotland. there is a little bit of fog around the western isles, the northern isles and certainly for the north sea coast, and it's running in through the central belt, so it might well not clear the central lowlands during the rest of the day. lots of sunshine. northern ireland, north western parts of england and central and eastern england. but we have had a cluster of storms and i or 2 could brew up elsewhere again in the south of england, possiblyi or 2 in east anglia. but it's these areas where we're likely to see the highest temperatures.

again, it was a warm start, of course, and a warm day, 2a, 25, but we could see 21 in the northwest highlands as well in that sunshine. now it's going to turn fresher here in the highlands overnight. a little bit of mist and fog and more generally that low cloud will meander backing off the north sea. but look at the rain and the thunderstorms further south. it's likely that they'll start to become more widespread. the low pressure bringing them closing in. so for most of us, another warm night and a fairly damp start to the day in some parts tomorrow. grey from the mist and the drizzle, or indeed from those downpours. and it's primarily england and wales where we'll see those most impactful amounts of rainfall. hazardous travel conditions. lots of spray in excess water as well. you can see this is where the computer model thinks we'll see the wettest weather through saturday, sunday and monday. it's primarily england and wales. the coin does flip later in the week and i'll tell you about that later. but you can see don't take this quite literally, but you can see more cloud around across england and wales through tomorrow and certainly more widespread outbreaks of rain, some thundery downpours, whilst further north and west again, the low cloud clears back to the east coast,

hopeful that it'll clear away from the central belt as well, but probably not quite as warm tomorrow as today, particularly in the south, because we've got more cloud and probably more showery rain around this area of low pressure, which is still meandering across england. meandering across england and wales on monday, some uncertainty as to how far north it's going to go, and there's that rain coming late in the day into the north as well. and behind that it's likely to turn a little bit cooler. as we head through the middle part of the week. and behind that it's likely to turn a little bit cooler as we head through the middle part of the week. we could have a blast of fairly significant winds wednesday on as well, but you can see from really tuesday on there's more chance of rain being caught in the north as well as in the south. a much cooler week, unsettled, on the cards.

live from london, this is bbc news.

israel and hezbollah exchange cross—border attacks. waves of rockets are fired into northern israel while targets are struck in southern lebanon. hezbollah confirms two senior commanders are among 37 people killed in friday's strike on beirut. israel's military says it killed 16 terrorists. dozens more women contact the bbc with fresh allegations about the former harrods boss mohamed al fayed. votes are being counted in sri lanka's first presidential election since the country's economic meltdown two years ago. russia evacuates 1,200 people after ukraine attacks an ammunition warehouse just east of occupied crimea. hello, i'm azadeh moshiri. the israeli military says it's carrying out more strikes on hezbollah

targets in lebanon.