Lewis Edwards: Former South Wales Police officer who posed as a boy on Snapchat to groom more than 200 girls jailed
Former police officer Lewis Edwards, who admitted more than 100 sexual offences against children, has been handed a life sentence.
He will serve a minimum of 12 years behind bars.
He was granted a reduction of one-third to his sentence due to his entering a guilty plea.
Sentences for other counts for which he pleaded guilty will be served concurrently.
Edwards, 24, carried out all but one of his offences while working as an officer for South Wales Police but was immediately suspended from duty upon his arrest and later resigned.
He used fake Snapchat accounts – posing as a 14-year-old boy – to groom more than 200 girls aged between 10 and 16 online.
Edwards asked scores of his victims for indecent images in school uniform and blackmailed many young girls – threatening to publish their photos or hurt their families to get them to cooperate.
Pic: South Wales Police
The former officer, from Bridgend, had previously pleaded guilty to 22 counts of blackmail, 138 child sex offences and a further offence of refusing to disclose the password to a mobile phone and USB stick.
But this week he refused to appear at Cardiff Crown Court to hear his punishment.
Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the Recorder of Cardiff, told the court she could not force Edwards to attend court for his sentencing.
Describing his offences, she said: “The defendant had a pattern of behaviour. He made online contact with a girl.
“The defendant pretended to be a boy of a similar age. He groomed his victims psychologically, manipulating them until he had gained control.”
She added: “When his victims did not comply with his orders, he would threaten them until they did as they were told.”
Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke during the sentencing of Lewis Edwards
The judge said Edwards continued his abuse even when the girls were crying and distressed.
“Even when told that the victim was self-harming or suicidal, the defendant did not stop,” she said.
One girl begged Edwards to stop demanding indecent images and videos of her.
“Please can you stop, I have my GCSE tomorrow morning, please, I’m begging you,” she told him.
The court heard how another of the victims told her father about what Edwards had been asking of her.
He took his daughter’s phone and sent Edwards a message saying, “This is [the girl’s] dad. Stop now. What you are doing is illegal.”
Edwards replied: “Lol.”
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The judge added, however, that he “did not use his position as a police officer in order to commit these offences”.
But she told the court that Edwards was the only person responsible for his crimes.
“It is important that everyone, particularly the victims and their families, understand that they have done nothing wrong,” she said.
“The blame and responsibility for this offending is the defendant’s and the defendant’s alone.”
She said Edwards’s sentence was “aggravated by the period of time over which these offences were committed, the number of victims, the number of images, almost all of which were moving images”.
Pic: South Wales Police
Judge Lloyd-Clarke said Edwards’s actions had caused “significant harm to the reputation of South Wales Police and to policing generally”.
However, she acknowledged that were it not for the work of the force, Edwards would not have been brought to justice.
South Wales Police previously admitted the offences would “damage the public’s trust and confidence in policing”.
After sentencing, Assistant Chief Constable Danny Richards said there was “no place” on the force for “anyone who abuses the personal responsibility they hold as a police officer”.
“I understand there will be people asking how Edwards could have joined the police at the same time he was committing these terrible crimes,” he said.
“At the time of him joining South Wales Police his vetting was clear and there was nothing to indicate that he was involved in such abhorrent offences against children,” he added.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
A £50,000 reward is being offered over the unsolved theft of a batch of early Scottish coins that were stolen 17 years ago.
More than 1,000 coins from the 12th and 13th centuries were taken from the home of Lord and Lady Stewartby in Broughton, near Peebles in the Scottish Borders, in June 2007.
The stolen haul spans a period of almost 150 years, from around 1136 when the first Scottish coins were minted during the reign of David I up to around 1280 and the reign of Alexander III.
The late Lord Stewartby entrusted the remainder of his collection to The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow in 2017, but the missing coins have never been found.
Pic: Crimestoppers Scotland
Pic: Crimestoppers Scotland
Crimestoppers announced its maximum reward of £20,000 – which is available for three months until 27 February – in a fresh appeal on Wednesday. An anonymous donor is helping to boost the total reward amount to £50,000.
It is hoped it will prompt people to come forward with information which could lead to the recovery of the missing treasures and the conviction of those responsible for the crime.
Pic: Crimestoppers Scotland
Pic: Crimestoppers Scotland
Angela Parker, national manager at Crimestoppers Scotland, said Lord Stewartby’s haul was the “best collection of Scottish coins ever assembled by a private individual”.
Jesper Ericsson, curator of numismatics at The Hunterian, described the medieval coins as smaller than a modern penny.
He added: “Portraits of kings and inscriptions may be worn down to almost nothing and the coins might be oddly shaped, perhaps even cut in half or quarters.
“You could fit 1,000 into a plastic takeaway container, so they don’t take up a lot of space. They may look unremarkable, but these coins are the earliest symbols of Scotland’s monetary independence.
“They are of truly significant national importance. Their safe return will not only benefit generations of scholars, researchers, students and visitors to come, but will also right a wrong that Lord Stewartby never got to see resolved before he died.”
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Angela Parker, national manager at Crimestoppers Scotland, and Jesper Ericsson, curator of numismatics at The Hunterian. Pic: Crimestoppers Scotland
Mr Ericsson pleaded with whoever has the coins to “return them to where they belong”.
He added: “Give Scotland back its coins.”
Lady Stewartby said her husband, who was a renowned numismatist, was just five-years-old when he was given his first Scottish coin.
She added: “Over the next 50 years, he put together a collection which included some of the earliest Scottish coins.
“Lord Stewartby told me and our children that they represented Scotland’s history at a time when few people had access to books or pictures.”
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