Former police officer Lewis Edwards, who admitted greater than 100 sexual offences in opposition to kids, has been handed a life sentence.
He will serve a minimal of 12 years behind bars.
He was granted a discount of one-third to his sentence as a consequence of his coming into a responsible plea.
Sentences for different counts for which he pleaded responsible can be served concurrently.
Edwards, 24, carried out all however one among his offences whereas working as an officer for South Wales Police however was instantly suspended from obligation upon his arrest and later resigned.
He used faux Snapchat accounts – posing as a 14-year-old boy – to groom greater than 200 women aged between 10 and 16 on-line.
Edwards requested scores of his victims for indecent pictures in class uniform and blackmailed many younger women – threatening to publish their photographs or harm their households to get them to cooperate.
The former officer, from Bridgend, had beforehand pleaded responsible to 22 counts of blackmail, 138 baby intercourse offences and an extra offence of refusing to reveal the password to a cell phone and USB stick.
But this week he refused to seem at Cardiff Crown Court to listen to his punishment.
Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, the Recorder of Cardiff, instructed the courtroom she couldn’t drive Lewis Edwards to attend courtroom for his sentencing.
“He groomed his victims, psychologically manipulating them until he had gained control,” she mentioned.
Describing his offences, she mentioned: “The defendant had a pattern of behaviour. He made online contact with a girl.
“The defendant pretended to be a boy of an analogous age. He groomed his victims psychologically, manipulating them till he had gained management.”
She added: “When his victims didn’t comply, he would threaten them till they did what they have been instructed.”
The decide mentioned Edwards continued his abuse even when the women have been crying and distressed.
“Even when told the victim was self-harming or suicidal, the defendant did not stop,” she mentioned.
“He would threaten them until they did what they were told.”
One woman begged Edwards to cease demanding indecent pictures and movies of her.
“Please can you stop, I have my GCSE tomorrow morning, please, I’m begging you,” she instructed him.
The courtroom heard how one other of the victims instructed her father about what Edwards had been asking of her.
He took his daughter’s telephone and despatched 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 decide added, nonetheless, that he “did not use his position as a police officer in order to commit his offences”.
But she instructed the courtroom that Edwards was the one individual liable for his crimes.
“It is important that everyone, particularly the victims and their families, understand that they have done nothing wrong,” she mentioned.
“The blame and the responsibility for this event is the defendant’s and the defendant’s alone.”
She mentioned 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”.
Judge Lloyd-Clarke mentioned Edwards’s actions had brought about “significant harm to the reputation of South Wales Police and the police in general”.
However, she acknowledged that have been it for not the work of the drive, Edwards wouldn’t have been dropped at justice.
South Wales Police beforehand admitted the offences would “damage the public’s trust and confidence in policing”.
After sentencing, Assistant Chief Constable Danny Richards mentioned there was “no place” on the drive 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 mentioned.
“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.
Source: information.sky.com”