The BBC, Britain’s public broadcaster, suspended a male staff member on Sunday after a report in The Sun newspaper that an unnamed male presenter had paid tens of thousands of pounds to a person starting when they were 17 years old in exchange for “sexually explicit photographs.”
The Sun did not identify the presenter, and the BBC did not identify the staff member who was suspended.
In a statement announcing the suspension, the BBC said that the company “became aware of a complaint in May,” and “new allegations were put to us on Thursday of a different nature.”
“The BBC takes any allegations seriously, and we have robust internal processes in place to proactively deal with such allegations,” the company said, adding, “This is a complex and fast moving set of circumstances, and the BBC is working as quickly as possible to establish the facts in order to properly inform appropriate next steps.”
The BBC said it expected to provide updates “in the coming days” and that the BBC board would be kept up to date.
