THE HUW Edwards scandal has rightly provoked revulsion and anger at the leniency of sentences given to offenders viewing sexual images of children.
It has also given rise to suspicion of a two-tier justice system with offences which cause children to suffer harrowing abuse being taken less seriously than some petty crimes.
This is an issue which has been hiding in plain sight for many years and which is only now attracting attention after disgraced former BBC presenter Edwards walked free from court.
Better late than never.
Currently there are more offenders accessing illegal images of children than ever with the sheer volume meaning only a small percentage of them will ever be brought before courts.
The NSPCC estimates up to 500,000 men have viewed child sexual abuse images in the UK – yes, really.
Analysis of police data by the charity suggests 33,000 men – and it is a male issue – arrested last year had illegal images of children – a 25% rise on the previous 12 months.
And it’s a growing problem with emerging artificial intelligence technology creating new ways of creating illegal images.
Organised criminal networks are also continuing to exploit the dark web to cater for the massive online paedophile market and make money from evil.
The scale of the problem means the National Crime Agency and police forces often have to cherry pick targets of importance – primarily those with access to children.
Like Edwards, many of those who are caught will have been trawled by cops through the domino effect of one offender’s digital devices leading to another.
Police undercover units are also tracking paedophiles online and arrested 1,700 men last year.
Laudable though those efforts may be, it only represents a drop in the ocean in terms of tackling the overall problem.
It is therefore imperative that when offenders like Edwards are brought to justice that a message of deterrence is sent out to others like him.
Only by jailing offenders will the message get through that such conduct is unacceptable in a civilised society.
If that means finding new prison spaces – perhaps by locking up offenders in disused Army barracks or ships offshore until the Government’s seven new jails are built – then so be it. The money will have been well spent.
The consequences of failing to do so will be the continued erosion of public faith in a criminal justice system which can treat the theft of cakes more seriously than the suffering of children.
By Mike Sullivan, Crime Editor