British police officer bags life sentence for s3xually abusing over 200 children
A former British Police Officer, Lewis Edwards, on Wednesday, was sentenced to life imprisonment sentence by a court in Wales for posing as a teenage boy on social media to trick girls into sending private images of themselves to him.
Edwards’ sentencing trails a series of highly damaging episodes for forces in the UK, especially London’s Metropolitan Police Service, which is the country’s largest.
Edwards, who is 24 years, was said to have taken advantage of 210 girls aged between 10 and 16 by cajoling them to send graphic images of themselves on a social media platform, Snapchat, where images typically disappear, that he then secretly saved.
He refused to appear in court for his sentencing, but will spend a minimum of 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to 160 charges, including child sexual abuse and blackmail.
He was also granted a reduction of one-third to his sentence due to his entering a guilty plea for the crimes that took place between November 2020 and February 2023.
“These are extremely serious offences and the defendant is a prolific offender.
“It is clear that he not only gained sexual gratification but he also enjoyed the power he had over the young girls,” Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke had said in the Cardiff Crown Court.
Earlier this year, a review commissioned after the kidnap, rape and murder of a London woman, Sarah Everard, by serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens in 2021, found the country’s police to be institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic.
Since then another officer, David Carrick, had also been jailed for life for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults stretching back two decades.
Meanwhile, during the trial the court heard how Edwards, who joined South Wales Police in January 2021, blackmailed many of his victims with threats to tell their family and friends unless they sent increasingly graphic content.
Edwards, who was suspended and resigned from the force after his arrest in February, also threatened to bomb the house of one of his victims and shoot her parents if she stopped sending him images.
Detectives raided the home he shared with his parents in Bridgend, South Wales, seizing mobile phones, a computer, USB sticks and a hard drive.
Investigators found that on 30 occasions, Edwards was in contact with his victims during working hours.
