The court heard that Edwards sent hundreds of pounds to a convicted paedophile after they sent him pornographic images.
While most of the images were of adult men, a significant proportion of the images were of children.
Of the 377 images, 41 were indecent images.
Edwards wrote “yes xxx” when he was asked by Alex Williams if he wanted sexual images of a person whose “age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16”.
Prosecutor Ian Hope said in his opening remarks in the case against the veteran broadcaster: “It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature.
“It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money – low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis – to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.
“Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.”
The prosecutor noted that at one point, in 2021, Williams asks if he was sending images that were too young.
Three days later Edwards replied “don’t send anything underage”.
