The BBC has suspended a male staff member after reports of payment for sexually explicit images

Britain’s public broadcaster the BBC on Sunday suspended a male employee after reporting The Sun newspaper that an unnamed male presenter paid tens of thousands of pounds to a man as young as 17 in exchange for “sexual photographs”.

The Sun did not name the presenter and the BBC did not name the employee who was suspended.

The statement announces the suspensionThe BBC said the company “became aware of the complaint in May” and “we were made new allegations of a different nature on Thursday”.

“The BBC takes any allegations seriously and we have robust internal processes to proactively deal with such allegations,” the company said, adding: “This is a complex and rapidly changing set of circumstances and the BBC si is working as quickly as possible to establish the facts to properly inform the appropriate next steps.”

The BBC said it expected an update “in the coming days” and that the BBC’s board would be constantly updated.