A former boss at the BBC has cautioned Channel 5 over their upcoming drama focusing on Huw Edwards, after the broadcaster released first-look images of Martin Clunes in the role.
Roger Mosey, who previously headed up TV News at the broadcaster before leaving in 2013, suggested that the channel’s new drama about the downfall of the disgraced news presenter ‘will rapidly run into legal problems’.
During a new interview he went on to describe the upcoming two-parter, which has the working title Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards, as ‘very risky’.
Speaking to Times Radio, Mosey suggested a ‘documentary approach’ might be more appropriate.
He told radio hosts Jane Garvey and Fi Glover that a drama would not have been his ‘preferred route’ of looking at the former News at Ten presenter.
He said: ‘Dramas involving living people are always very risky. A documentary approach seems to me to be completely legitimate and right and you should have the right to investigate.
‘But as we saw, you remember Steve Coogan’s film made about Richard III… once you start doing a narrative in a movie of good guys and bad guys and who did it, you can run into legal problems really very, very rapidly.
‘Drama would not be my preferred route of looking at this.’
The series will explore the story of ‘how a vulnerable 17-year-old was groomed by one of the most powerful figures in television’.
It’s also been shared by Channel 5 that the series will ‘investigate the newsreader’s double life as it spirals out of control, leading him to make the greatest announcement of his career – his total exit from public life following his conviction for serious child sexual offences’.
Edwards was one of the BBC’s highest-paid and most prominent presenters for two decades, delivering momentous news to the nation, including the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
Just months after he wowed Britain with his stoic coverage of the monarch’s death and the subsequent coronation of King Charles, Edwards was suspended amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
The presenter was subsequently charged with three counts of making indecent images of children, which included a child as young as seven, and receiving 41 illegal images from a convicted paedophile over WhatsApp.
After pleading guilty Edwards, now 64, was given a six-month suspended jail sentence and placed on the sex offenders’ register.
Metro contacted Channel 5 for comment.
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