Former British police officer jailed for abusing over 200 girls on Snapchat

LONDON — A former British police officer was once sentenced Wednesday to existence in jail with a minimal time period of 12 years after he pleaded responsible to over 100 kid intercourse offenses, together with threatening and blackmailing greater than 200 younger girls into sending him sexual pictures of themselves on Snapchat.

Prosecutors say Lewis Edwards, 24, centered 210 girls between the ages of 10 and 16 through posing as a teenage boy on the telephone app. He groomed them into sharing indecent photographs of themselves, then threatened lots of his sufferers after they refused, blackmailing them into complying out of worry that he would reveal them.

Edwards, who joined the South Wales Police in 2021, was once a serving police officer when he dedicated nearly all of the offenses. He was once arrested in February, and has since pleaded responsible to a few 160 counts of kid intercourse offenses and blackmail.

In one case, prosecutors mentioned Edwards threatened to bomb the home of a sufferer and shoot her folks if she stopped sending him photographs.

Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke mentioned Edwards was once a prolific perpetrator who posed a prime possibility to youngsters. She described his conduct as “cruel and sadistic.”

“The defendant pretended to be a boy of a similar age. He groomed his victims psychologically, manipulating them until he had gained control,” she said. “It is clear that he not only gained sexual gratification but he also enjoyed the power he had over the young girls.

“There is no doubt he has caused significant harm to the reputation of South Wales Police and policing in general,” she added.

Edwards was once fired all the way through a police misconduct listening to previous this 12 months.

Many of the sufferers and their households sat within the packed public gallery for Wednesday’s sentencing listening to at Cardiff Crown Court, however Edwards refused to wait.

Snapchat mentioned in a observation that it really works “in multiple ways to detect and prevent this type of abuse, including using cutting-edge detection technology.”

“We have further protections for under-18s and lately added a brand new pop-up caution for teenagers if they’re contacted through somebody who they don’t know,” the California-based corporate mentioned.