After Huw Edwards Scandal, BAFTA Will Consider Revoking Awards if Winners Found Guilty of Crimes

variety.com:

Alex Ritman The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has added new guidance to its awards rulebook about retrospectively reviewing and rescinding awards, should the entry be found ineligible through dishonesty or the winner be convicted of a serious crime.

Citing disgraced former BBC News host Huw Edwards — who earlier this year pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children — as an example, BAFTA chair Sara Putt outlined the “forfeiture process” that would lead the organization to consider revoking an award. “Earlier this year we were shocked by the news of the former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards’ arrest and subsequent conviction for child pornography offences,” she wrote in a letter to members. “He won seven individual BAFTA Cymru awards for television presenting between 2002 and 2017.

Following the news, deeply complex questions were raised regarding historic awards won by individuals and specifically whether awards won in competition should ever be removed retrospectively.” For competitive film, TV and game awards presented from 2025 onwards, the new guidance states that the grounds by which they would be “considered for revocation” include the entrant having used duplicitous or illegal methods to make their work or false information that renders their application ineligible.

But unconnected to a specific work, BAFTA also now says that it can consider withdrawing an award retrospectively if the “individual named winner is found guilty by the courts of any criminal offense and is sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three months or more (whether or not suspended).” “As academy members, you are asked to judge your peers on creative excellence, and vote for the best work.