South Wales Police Officer Sentenced to Life for Grooming, Blackmailing Underage Girls on …

A South Wales Police officer who blackmailed and threatened underage girls to send him explicit photos of themselves on Snapchat has been jailed for life, Catriona Aitken reports for BBC News. Lewis Edwards groomed more than 200 girls online aged 10 to 16 from November 2020 until February 2023 and images of 207 of them were found on his devices. The young girls were told by Edwards, who used used a profile picture of a teenage boy to trick his victims, to take nude pictures, sometimes wearing only items of their school uniform, and perform sexual acts.Edwards admitted to 160 counts of child sexual abuse and blackmail, receiving multiple concurrent prison sentences, including several life sentences with a minimum term of 12 years. Edwards will also be subject to an indefinite sexual harm prevention order, barring him from working with children or vulnerable people and requiring him to keep his personal details logged with police.
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