As Huw Edwards walks free, abuse victims ask how he received away with it

Grim-faced and dragging a small suitcase to court, Huw Edwards seemed prepared for the prison sentence which could have followed his abhorrent crimes.

Sat in the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ Court this week, he hunched forward, hands clasped together as if in prayer with his ­wedding ring clearly visible – despite the telling absence of his wife and ­family in the public gallery.

The former presenter’s body language told the story of a condemned man ready to accept punishment for his sins.

But one wonders whether this display of contrite stoicism was simply an act from a seasoned anchorman well versed in performing under pressure?

After all, Edwards is a diligent newsman and will surely have researched the facts before going to court.

He must have known a mere 20 per cent of offenders convicted of accessing child abuse images go to prison.

Certainly, he was aware his co-conspirator, Alex Williams, the sick paedophile who sent him 41 indecent images of children – seven in the most serious category – had avoided jail despite being convicted of more serious offences.

While his face gave nothing away as the sentence was handed down, the reality is that, despite his hand-wringing performance, the six-month term suspended for two years will have come as no great surprise.

Immediately after leaving court, the disgraced presenter’s life will have been able to resume with what, the Mail has learned, are surprisingly ­minimal legal restrictions.

For example, Edwards would have been free to continue with his £5,000-a-week stay at the Nightingale Hospital, just a stone’s throw away from the court in Marylebone, where he had been residing since entering guilty pleas to three counts of making indecent images of children on July 31.

The Nightingale is the only private adult mental health hospital in central London and offers discreet 24-hour inpatient care.

Presumably funded out of the £200,000 Edwards – said to have been paid £490,000 a year by the BBC –received since his suspension, it comes with luxury benefits.

Inpatients have access to personal trainers in the hospital’s state of the art gym, and wellbeing therapies including hot stone massages, organic skincare facials and lymphatic ­drainage treatments.

Whether the 63-year-old chose to return to the facility is unknown, although he spent some time with his mother in Carmarthenshire, south-west Wales.

He’s unlikely to have gone back to the family home in Dulwich, south London, as his wife, Vicky Flind, mother to his five children, reportedly moved out some time ago.

A source says: ‘They closed ranks to protect each other, especially the two girls. Vicky refuses point-blank to discuss any of it.’

While the Mail has been told by one close to the family that Ms Flind has long known her ­husband was wrestling with his sexuality – he has now admitted being ­bisexual – she ‘just didn’t expect the public humiliation’ of his crimes. What wife would?

Starting a new life with zero input from a once-loving family – combined with the fact that his movements will not be hindered by punitive ­restrictions, given that the chief magistrate chose not to hand down a Sexual Harm Prevention Order which imposes a wide range of limitations on offenders – means Edwards can, largely, live as he pleases. If he wishes to travel abroad, then he is free to do so, provided he gives police seven days’ notice of his plans.

Nor are there any limitations on where he can go in the UK – everywhere from shopping centres to children’s playgrounds are, technically, legally permissible.

There are also no restrictions placed on his internet or phone use. And – rather astonishingly considering the nature of their past communications – as long as they do not reoffend, he is even free to contact his paedophile chum Alex Williams.

How, then, has Edwards ­managed to avoid serious censure for what were deeply disturbing crimes? It’s worth repeating that seven of the indecent images shared with Edwards were Category A, the most serious type.

Of those images, the estimated age of most of the children was between 13 and 15, but one was aged between seven and nine.

Category A images are defined as involving penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal, or sadism.

The three offences Edwards pleaded guilty to – the legal definition of making such images also extends to opening or viewing them – carry a maximum sentence of up to ten years in prison.

Some believe his legal team – which included barrister Philip Evans KC, and a host of medical experts – utilised a ­mental health playbook, detailing various ‘mitigating circumstances’ in arguing his defence.

Great play was made of Edwards suffering from mental health issues which stemmed from his restrictive childhood in Llangennech, a village in Carmarthenshire, south Wales, and the ‘monstrous’ behaviour of his father.

His issues were also compounded, the court heard, by an inferiority complex formed by a failure to secure a place at Oxford.

Journalist Hannah Shewan Stevens, 30, is a survivor of child sexual abuse carried out by a ­family friend when she was aged between seven and nine – the same age as the youngest child in the images sent to Edwards.

‘What I don’t respect or understand is those mitigating factors being presented as excuses or remorse,’ said Ms Stevens. ‘Having mental health issues doesn’t turn someone into a paedophile. It has not made me seek out indecent images or abuse ­people myself.’

It emerged in court that Edwards had struggled with his sexuality since 1994, but sources close to the family say he had known his true nature since his teenage years.

‘Again, this is not a reason for offending – struggling to come to terms with your bisexuality does not make you turn to paedophilia,’ said Ms Stevens.

Little wonder that there is concern, even among the legal profession, that this case is a missed opportunity to send a clear message to offenders that their crimes will not go unpunished.

‘The issue I have with this sentence is that it doesn’t act as a real deterrent,’ said barrister Dr Sam Fowles, who was part of the legal team that won appeals against the Post Office Horizon scandal convictions. ‘It suggests you can, as Edwards it seems did, watch a child being abused and walk away with a slap on the wrist.’

What’s even more concerning perhaps is Edwards’s offending only came to light when South Wales Police accessed a WhatsApp conversation on Williams’ phone.

But there were conversations on other platforms which law enforcement could not access, including on the highly encrypted messaging app Telegram, where Williams sourced his vile material in the first place.

Its owner, Russian-born billionaire Pavel Durov, is currently under investigation in France over suspected complicity in allowing illicit transactions, drug trafficking, fraud and child sex abuse images to flourish on his platform. Edwards paid Williams up to £1,500 over the four years they were in contact – during which time the younger man sent him 377 images, 41 of which were indecent.

But Edwards’s barrister, Mr Evans, argued that the payments were not specifically for the images, which was accepted by chief magistrate Mr Goldspring.

Rather surprisingly, Mr Goldspring also accepted the assertion that Edwards, who replied ‘Amazing’ to the images he was sent, had not used the material for ­personal gratification.

He also accepted that Edwards had no memory of even viewing the images.

In addition, the court ruled that Edwards – who had also responded to warnings from Williams that the subject of images he was about to send was ‘young’ with ‘go on’ – posed no risk to children.

The chief magistrate told the court: ‘I do not consider that Mr Edwards represents any risk to people under the age of 18, or, indeed, to anyone.’

This about the man who asked ‘any more?’ when told the images he was about to receive were of youngsters.

Crucially, Edwards’s barrister went to great pains to clarify that his client was not the individual who created the vile photographs and videos, nor did he store or distribute them. That was the role of his online ‘friend’ 25-year-old Williams, who received a 12-month suspended sentence for his crimes.

The Mail can reveal that Williams’s ­parents were completely unaware their son was a convicted paedophile, only discovering the horrific truth last month.

Williams enjoyed a comfortable job as duty manager in the Cardiff office of home improvement retailer Wickes, where his employers were also oblivious. Wickes confirmed yesterday Williams has now left the company. If offenders like Williams cannot only escape prison for distributing indecent material, but also keep the shame of their crimes a secret, it’s unsurprising that child abuse image crimes are soaring.

If offenders like Williams cannot only escape prison for distributing indecent material, but also keep the shame of their crimes a secret, it’s unsurprising that child abuse image crimes are soaring.

The number of such offences recorded by UK police increased by a quarter last year to more than 33,000.

The National Crime Agency estimates there are roughly 850,000 individuals who pose a sexual risk to children in Britain.

Ms Stevens, who reported her own abuser when she was 13 but was discouraged from taking the case to court, said light sentences handed out to offenders effectively gave the green light to the vile trade of indecent images online.

‘We are essentially decriminalising rapes, with 99 per cent of offenders never seeing the inside of a court room,’ she said.

‘And possession of child abuse material – a crime much easier to prove than rape and serious sexual assault – is going the same way with eight out of ten offenders escaping a prison term.’

Sentencing guidelines need to become more punitive to deter offenders and protect the public, Dr Fowles added. ‘It’s concerning that the law allows Edwards and others like him to be free in public with minimal oversight when they appear to have sexual attraction to children.’

Edwards’s sentence is not eligible to be reviewed under the Unduly Lenient Scheme as it was handed down at a magistrates’ court not a crown court judge.

As for the BBC, it’s hoping to recover that £200,000 paid to Edwards while he was suspended. That seems a faint hope.

It is estimated that Edwards has spent roughly double that amount on legal and professional fees alone, never mind the expense of his hospital stay.

To Edwards, presumably, all that is money well spent. But the images of him wheeling his suitcase away from the court will surely embolden more offenders to exchange the kind of vile content which so titillated the former BBC star.