A police officer who groomed more than 200 underage girls on Snapchat has lost an appeal to reduce his life sentence.
Lewis Edwards, a former Southern Wales Police officer, admitted more than 100 sexual crimes against children and was sentenced to a minimum of 12 years in prison.
He was arrested last yearbut lawyers acting on his behalf argued on Thursday that the judge should not have handed down a life sentence.
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Three Court of Appeal judges dismissed the 24-year-old’s case.
Judge May said Edwards appeared to have “an established, perverse sexual interest in young girls”.
“In these circumstances, we can understand the judge’s conclusion that it was impossible to conclude when or if the risk posed by the applicant would cease.
“We are not convinced that the applicant should be sentenced differently. The sentence therefore remains in all respects as it was before.”
Cardiff Crown The court was told during a hearing last October that Edwards used fake Snapchat accounts – posing as a 14-year-old boy – to groom more than 200 girls aged between 10 and 16 online.
Edwards asked dozens of his victims for indecent images in school uniforms and blackmailed many girls – threatening to publish their photos or harm their families to get them to cooperate.
‘Not irrational’ phrase
Edwards, previously from the Cefn Glas area of Bridgend, pleaded guilty to a total of 161 offences.
The former police officer refused to attend the sentencing and also did not attend Thursday’s appeal hearing.
Susan Ferrier, Edwards’ lawyer, said life in prison should be a “last resort” and that he was “emotionally immature” at the time of the crime.
Roger Griffiths, on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said the sentence was not “manifestly excessive in the circumstances of this case”.
Mrs Justice May, who sat with Lord Justice Holroyde and Mr Justice Bourne, ruled that a life sentence was “not unreasonable”, despite the case falling on the “outer margins” of such a sentence.
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