THE shameful saga of Huw Edwards marks the perfect watershed moment for the Government to bring in mandatory jail terms for paedophiles.
To recap: the disgraced BBC News frontman admitted in July to having viewed 41 images and videos involving child abuse of kids as young as SEVEN.
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They included seven Category A files — the worst classification, which includes sadism — mostly featuring children aged 13 to 15. In one instance, he referred to the images he was receiving as “amazing”.
Any ordinary, right-minded person would have recoiled in shock and disgust and taken the images straight to the police.
Because let’s not forget what the perpetuation of these images represents — a horrifying market for abuse that will only lead to more sexual violence against children in order to supply the twisted demands of men like Huw.
Appalling abuse
Indeed, the supremely arrogant Huw has been proven to be a voracious and rapturous consumer of this appalling abuse.
He not only continued messaging the man, agreeing to receive more horrific images, but was so pleased with the arrangement that he showered him with cash gifts.
As much as Edwards has feigned remorse, make no mistake: this wasn’t an isolated lapse in judgment — these are the man’s true colours.
A Sun online documentary has revealed how Edwards, in a separate incident, sent a string of controlling and abusive messages to a teenager who he received sexual images from in exchange for tens of thousands of pounds.
As a parent, it is hard to think of crimes more evil than those Edwards has been complicit in
And to add insult to injury, the disgraced presenter has not returned a penny of the £200,000 of licence-fee payers’ money he earned after his arrest, despite the corporation demanding it back.
With all this in mind, the fact that Edwards is now free to go home without having to spend even a minute in a jail cell is unconscionable.
As a parent, it is hard to think of crimes more evil than those Edwards has been complicit in.
It’s been just a matter of weeks since Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised that “those who break the law will feel the full force of the law”, a statement that has proven itself to be, beyond reasonable doubt, total hogwash.
And the sad reality is that Edwards’ meagre punishment is not an anomaly.
Yes — the abysmal handling of sex offenders and paedophiles by our courts IS baked into the system
Eight in ten people convicted of possessing indecent images of children avoid prison, according to the National Crime Agency.
All this while the number of child abuse image offences continues to rise.
Lawyers have already taken to the airwaves to tell the public that people’s outrage about Edwards’ conviction is misguided.
“His sentence is perfectly in line with sentencing guidelines,” they said. “The fact he got a third off his sentence for pleading guilty, and further mitigation for poor mental health is simply our justice system working as it was intended.”
Sadly, they’re right. Yes — the abysmal handling of sex offenders and paedophiles by our courts IS baked into the system.
While victims have to jump through hoops to even secure a conviction, sex offenders are handed the gift of endless loopholes to reduce their sentences or skip jail altogether.
That’s why we MUST bring in mandatory custodial sentences for paedophiles.
Over the past few years, we’ve banged up people for far lesser crimes.
In fact, the bitter irony is that, in my lifetime, more than 2,000 people have gone to jail for not paying fines after being convicted of not having a BBC TV licence.
But, God forbid, we put a convicted child sex offender WORKING at the BBC behind bars!
That’s why the Government has to bring in new legislation to toughen sentences for child sex offenders.
Enough is enough. No more suspended sentences, no more slaps on the wrist.
Paedophiles’ free pass
The Government could, today, announce that it will pass a raft of laws to make sure child abuse victims get the justice they are owed.
They have done it before for equally just causes.
Indeed, in the past few years alone politicians have brought forward a number of changes to sentencing when it has suited them.
Yet, paedophiles are given a free pass.
It’s high time those who represent us put their money where their mouth is on the ‘tough-on-crime’ rhetoric and gave the very worst in society their just deserts
In 2015, Parliament passed laws to give people twice convicted of carrying a knife mandatory jail time.
In 2020, it passed laws to introduce mandatory life sentences for killing an emergency worker on duty.
In 2022, it passed laws introducing a mandatory minimum sentence for drink- drivers who kill people.
Parliament even summoned the willpower to raise the maximum sentence for animal cruelty a whopping tenfold, from six months to 60 months in prison.
It’s high time those who represent us put their money where their mouth is on the “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and gave the very worst in society their just deserts.
Failing to do so will not only be a monumental moral failing, it will send a signal that Britain is open for business for paedophiles like Huw Edwards.
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‘HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT’
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