Live updates as police officer who blackmailed young children into performing sex acts is sentenced

Chilling video evidence of the abuse a serving South Wales Police officer inflicted on young children as he blackmailed them into performing sex acts was played to Cardiff Crown Court today. Lewis Edwards, 24, refused to go into the hearing where he is being sentenced for 160 charges including child exploitation, blackmail, indecent images and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Edwards, of Brigend, was caught by the police force where he was employed after they received intelligence about the downloading of indecent images from the dark web. He had more than 200 victims who lived in fear from the paedophile, who also sent images of himself masturbating. The defendant was identified, arrested and subsequently resigned from the force, before an accelerated misconduct hearing delivered the sanction of dismissal.

An investigation by South Wales Police revealed Edwards' victims were aged between 10 and 16 years old, who he groomed on Snapchat between 2020 and 2023. He posed as a teenager and forced his victim to make indecent videos and images of themselves, which he covertly recorded.

He then used the recordings to blackmail his victim into sending increasingly graphic and explicit images, which involved the victims being made to engage in sexual acts. Edwards also sent videos of himself performing a sex act to some of his victims. Officers from South Wales Police recovered heavily encrypted electronic devices and a blackmail manual belonging to Edwards when he was arrested.

Edwards, of Heol Ty Cribwr, Cefn Glas, previously pleaded guilty to 160 counts in total. These included 23 counts of causing/inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, one count of causing child exploitation, six counts of causing a child to