Mum hid paedophile cop's phone in cat grave

Rebekah Edwards was given a two year sentence for hiding the phone

The mother of a former police officer, who was jailed for child sex abuse, buried his phone in a cat grave to hinder the investigation, a court heard.

Lewis Edwards, 25, of Cefn Glas, Bridgend, used Snapchat to groom more than 200 girls online and admitted 160 counts of child sexual abuse and blackmail involving 4,500 indecent images of children.

His parents, Rebekah, 48, and Mark Edwards, 51, were both charged with perverting the course of justice by concealing devices.

Mr Edwards was cleared, while Mrs Edwards admitted the charge, and was sentenced to two years at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday.

"What was on that phone in the garden, sadly we will never know," said prosecutor Roger Griffiths.

"It must have contained material of great significance to his offending."

Mrs Edwards, a former social care worker for Bridgend council was heard by police talking to her son about what she should do with his phones, the court heard.

The prosecutor said Lewis Edwards was heard to reply: "Bury the black one."

Mrs Edwards handed two phones over to officers, but failed to mention the phone in the garden until prompted by officers.

Mr Griffiths said Mark Edwards was present at the time and that the couple exchanged looks before Mrs Edwards admitted "I buried the phone in the garden where I buried the cat".

Mr Edwards then dug up the phone which was damaged with a smashed screen.

Defending Mrs Edwards, Giles Hayes said that her "world had been turned upside down" when her son was arrested, something which made her "embark on a course of conduct that is completely out of character".

She was "trying to assist her son who is now in very difficult circumstances", he added.

Lewis Edwards pleaded guilty to 160 counts of child sex abuse and blackmail

Sentencing Rebekah Edwards to two years in prison, Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke said the offence was "too serious for anything other than an immediate custodial sentence".

Lucy Dowdall from the Crown Prosecution Service said when Mrs Edwards hid the phone "she demonstrated a lack of concern for the devastating impact of her son's actions on innumerable young people and their families".

"Her sole concern was for her paedophile son and not for his victims or helping them secure the justice they deserved," Ms Dowdall said.

"The fact that Lewis Edwards involved his own family members shows how far he was prepared to go to cover up his offending, and his continued lack of remorse for his abhorrent behaviour."

Material from the phone buried in a cat's grave could not be retrieved because the sim card had been damaged

Derek Ray-Hill, Interim chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK's front line against online child sexual abuse imagery, said: "Every image or video of child sexual abuse is a crime scene.

"The children are real, and the abuse inflicted on them can affect them for life.

"Every day at the IWF, we see the results of his kind of offending. That predators like Edwards can now reach children through their phones, when they should be safe in their own homes, is a public health scandal which must be taken seriously."

At the same hearing as his mother on Tuesday, Lewis Edwards was given two further sentences.

These were terms of two years eight months for another count of possession of indecent images and 12 months for perverting the course of justice, which will both run concurrently to the term he is serving.

His parents, Rebekah and Mark Edwards were charged with perverting the course of justice by concealing devices but Mr Edwards was cleared

Lewis Edwards was a South Wales Police officer when he messaged 210 girls aged 10 to 16 from November 2020 until February 2023, and images of 207 of them were found on his devices.

Edwards, who refused to go to Cardiff Crown Court throughout his three-day sentencing hearing, joined the force as a police constable in January 2021 but is now barred from policing.

Edwards used a profile picture of a teenage boy to trick his victims into sending explicit images, with one saying that during video calls Edwards would sit in the dark, showing only a part of his face.

The young girls were told by Edwards to take nude pictures, sometimes wearing only items of their school uniform, and perform sexual acts.

When they tried to ignore his demands he threatened them and said he would share the images he already had, or said he would hurt their families.