Should Huw Edwards be stripped of his BBC pension?

With the Huw Edwards court case complete – and the disgraced BBC News presenter given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, after he admitted charges of making indecent images of children – attention has returned to the fact that he could still receive a £300,000-a-year BBC pension. Many are horrified by this. There have been demands that some way should be found to withhold payment from Edwards. I disagree.

Imagine if we did decide that those convicted of crimes such as Edwards’ have no property rights

A pension is part of the remuneration we receive for work done. It isn’t some extra perk or discretionary bonus handed to us if we have behaved well. Payment of a pension is a contractual obligation. The fact someone has committed a crime does not cancel our unrelated contractual obligations to that person.

Suppose, for example, that a builder had been resurfacing Edwards’ drive, that Edwards had paid in advance, with the work starting before his crimes had emerged and the drive dug up but not yet resurfaced.