The Huw Edwards case proves you cannot guarantee you truly know someone
Huw Edwards fooled me and many others into thinking he was a good man. It's time we removed the 'character witness' factor from our judicial system, says Vanessa Feltz.
Jeremy Paxman was chippy, prickly and difficult. When I was a nervous guest on Newsnight in 1995, Paxo languidly remarked off-screen: “Gust of breeze in the testicular area! Those damned moths have been nibbling my trousers again!” before segueing into: “Good evening, tonight in the Balkans...”
He said it to unnerve me, because it was either true or amusing, and he said it because he could.
He reigned supreme. If he wanted to derail his serfs – sorry, guests – by referring to a mistral blowing across his private parts, why not? If you’d have asked me, or any BBC colleague to describe Paxman, then the words “testy”, “challenging” and “short-tempered” would have featured alongside “brilliant” and “incisive”.
John Humphrys? Impatient, cantankerous, giving the world short shrift. I joined him on a panel show and he was stern, critical and unsmiling.
Complaining of a headache, I offered him a couple of paracetamol. He somehow managed to accept and pop the pills but make me feel idiotic for being wussy enough to carry painkillers – of which he vehemently disapproved – in my bag.
Of course, Humphrys is a gifted broadcaster and might well hide a sense of humour somewhere about his person, but most folk who enter his orbit emerge smarting from the experience.
Now, Huw Edwards on the other hand was humble, charming and empathetic. I saw him frequently during my 20-plus years at the BBC and he was never less than delightful. Appearing on the BBC1 lunchtime news presented by Huw was a reassuring pleasure. He always reminded me that he’d been sent by his bosses to watch me presenting the ITV Vanessa show, as he put it, “to learn how it’s done”.
If you’d have asked me what kind of chap Huw Edwards was, then I’d have said: “Self-effacing, wry and thoroughly decent.” Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Based on personal experience, you can see I knew nothing about the man except what he chose to project in public.
We must remove the “character witness” factor from our justice system.
You can work alongside someone for years and not have the faintest inkling of their true proclivities. You can be married to someone and have no idea what they get up to when you cannot see them.
Our courtrooms should not be clogged up with people attesting to the unimpeachably unblemished characters of those who successfully hoodwink them.
We should scrub all this “character witness” nonsense immediately. It’s not worth the court’s time.
