A predatory paedophile who incited more than 200 girls as young as 10 to send him explicit images and videos of themselves while he was a serving police officer has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years.
As Lewis Edwards, 24, was sentenced, detectives revealed that they were continuing to search for hundreds more victims across England and Wales and confirmed he had carried out some of the abuse while on duty with South Wales police.
The force accepted his crimes would knock public confidence but said they had acted quickly to arrest and suspend Edwards as soon as they realised the abuser was one of their own.
As well as continuing to search for more victims, police are hunting a distributor of child abuse images on the darknet called “Snap God”, a name Edwards forced some of his victims to write on their bodies.
Though he admitted 160 offences, Edwards obstructed the investigation by refusing to give police the passwords and codes for his phones and computers and he declined to appear in court for his sentencing.
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