Warwickshire man apologises and agrees to pay £1,000 to charity after defaming BBC presenter Jeremy Vine on Twitter

A man from Warwickshire has apologised and agreed to pay £1,000 to a charity after he defamed BBC presenter Jeremy Vine on Twitter.

Andy Plumb wrongly claimed on Twitter that Mr Vine was the unnamed BBC presenter who had paid a teenager thousands of pounds in exchange for sexual pictures. The presenter has now been named as Huw Edwards, but a number of other presenters were defamed on social media, including Mr Vine.

On Twitter, Jeremy said: "On July 8 @AndyPlumb4 libelled me by alleging that I was the BBC presenter at the heart of a story in The Sun that day. He has now acknowledged that he was wrong, and has apologised. At my request, he has also agreed to pay £1,000 to @mndassoc rather than paying damages."

Andy Plumb has now admitted his error, saying on Twitter: "On July 8, 2023, I posted a tweet stating that the then unknown BBC presenter involved in the purchasing explicit photos from an unknown 17-year-old person was @theJeremyVine.

"This was untrue and the post should not have been sent. Although the post was deleted, many screenshots were made and probably still exist. I retract the statement made in this tweet and any inference therein in their entirety.

"I would add that I sincerely and unreservedly apologise to Mr Vine for the untrue and defamatory statements made about him, which were entirely baseless."