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Edwards, 62, who was the BBC's highest paid journalist and top
news anchor until he quit in April, had arrived at London's
Westminster Magistrates' Court wearing sunglasses through a
throng of photographers and camera crews.
After confirming his identity, he was asked if he wished to
indicate a plea to the three charges, which relate to three
different categories of indecent images. Edwards said: "Guilty".
Judge Paul Goldspring said Edwards would be sentenced on Sept.
16.
During the 25-minute hearing, prosecutor Ian Hope said the 41
still or moving images had been sent to Edwards by an adult male
on WhatsApp between December 2020 and August 2021.
Hope added that seven of the 41 images were of the most serious
kind and that two of that seven were pornographic videos of a
child possibly aged seven and nine years old.
Edwards' lawyer Philip Evans emphasised that the charges to
which his client had indicated guilty pleas related only to
images that were sent to him via WhatsApp.
"There is no suggestion in this case that Mr Edwards has in any
way made, in the traditional sense of the word, any images in
any physical way or created any images of any sort," Evans said.
Edwards, who announced the death of Queen Elizabeth to the
nation in 2022 and led coverage of elections, royal weddings and
the 2012 Olympics, has not been on TV screens for a year and the
court appearance was his first in public since then.
He quit in April on medical advice after newspaper allegations
last year that he had paid a young person thousands of pounds
for sexually explicit photos.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Kate Holton, Michael Holden
and Gareth Jones)
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