Huw Edwards criticised for entering Welsh poetry competition

BBC actor Sera Cracroft says if disgraced former newsreader had won it would be hurtful to abuse survivors

The disgraced former BBC presenter Huw Edwards has been criticised after entering a Welsh poetry competition under a pseudonym.

The actor Sera Cracroft, best known for her role in the long-running BBC Welsh language soap opera Pobol y Cwm, told the BBC it would have been “catastrophic” if Edwards had won the prize, and that the “image of him being crowned in front of the nation” would be “hurtful to survivors”.

Edwards was given a six-month suspended sentence in September 2024 for accessing indecent images of children as young as seven.

In a Substack post on Sunday, Edwards wrote that he had entered the poem to a competition run by the National Eisteddfod of Wales festival on the theme of adnabod , meaning “ knowing”. He describes the poem as a tribute to his late father, who was a historian of the National Eisteddfod.

Entrants to the Eisteddfod poetry competition are required to submit under a pseudonym, with winners’ identities only revealed upon announcement. Edwards entered the poem under the pseudonym “Y Gelyn”, meaning “The Enemy” in English. The former BBC journalist Martin Huws was announced as this year’s winner of the competition, receiving £750, for a poem about abuse.

Cracroft, who has spoken publicly about being sexually assaulted as a child, also called on the competition’s organisers to review rules regarding entrants using a pen name.

“We have a process in place which ensures nobody, including the judges, know beforehand who has competed,” said the National Eisteddfod in a statement. “After each Eisteddfod, we have a period of appraisal to ensure our processes are appropriate – this year will be no exception.”

Cracroft said it was “far too soon for him [Edwards] to try and redeem himself”.

In his Substack post, Edwards wrote that “one of the most distressing episodes in 2024 was seeing the nature of my relationship with my father wilfully misrepresented by the media”.

In reports cited in sentencing remarks by the chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, consultant psychiatrist Michael Isaac wrote that Edwards’s father was “perceived as behaving monstrously within the family” and that the former BBC presenter’s relationship with his father was “probably damaging psychologically”.

“The poisonous narrative encouraged by the press two years ago needed correcting,” Edwards wrote in a statement reported by the BBC. “There was no way on earth I was going to win the competition and I knew that.”

On Cracroft’s remarks, he added: “This wasn’t a poem for the sickeningly self-righteous Welsh speakers – [Cracroft] amongst them – who take advantage of every opportunity to speak unthinkingly on every subject under the sun. She and her type are far too willing to ignore the damaging effects of mental ill health. In that, they are loyal to the heritage of London’s tabloid papers.”

The National Eisteddfod of Wales did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.