Former UK Police Officer Jailed For Abusing Over 200 Girls On Snapchat
A former police officer has been sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to blackmailing and threatening more than 200 girls as young as 10.
What happened?
Lewis Edwards, 24, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 12 years after he pleaded guilty to over 100 child sex offences, including threatening and blackmailing more than 200 minor girls into sending him sexual photos of themselves on Snapchat.??
Prosecutors say Edwards targeted 210 girls between the ages of 10 and 16 by posing as a teenage boy on the phone app. He groomed them into sharing indecent images of themselves, then threatened many of his victims when they refused, blackmailing them into complying out of fear that he would expose them.
Where and when?
Edwards, who joined the South Wales Police in 2021, was a serving police officer when he committed most of the offences. He was arrested in February and has since pleaded guilty to some 160 counts of child sex offences and blackmail.
He was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
Why was he sentenced?
Lewis Edward was found with 4,500 indecent pictures of children. As per BBC, the officer had messaged 210 girls aged 10 to 16 from November 2020 until February 2023. Images from 2017 were also found on his mobile phone.
In one case, prosecutors said Edwards threatened to bomb the house of a victim and shoot her parents if she stopped sending him images.??
How was the crime uncovered?
Enquiries first began in December 2022 when police received intelligence about suspicious bank transactions and online activity linked to the downloading of indecent images of children from the dark web, South Wales Police said in a release.
An IP address was linked to an address in the Bridgend area, and further checks led to the offender being identified as Lewis Edwards - a serving police officer.Edwards was immediately suspended from duty and resigned.
An accelerated misconduct hearing was held, which delivered the sanction of dismissal.
Who is he?
The 24-year-old police officer from UK's Bridgend joined the force as a police constable in January 2021, but he is now barred from policing.
"At the time of him joining SWP, his vetting was clear and there was nothing to indicate he was involved in such abhorrent offences against children," Assistant Chief Constable Danny Richards said.
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