Huw Edwards walks free with suspended sentence and told 'you're not a threat' to children

Shamed Huw Edwards has dodged an immediate prison sentence for having child abuse images on his phone. The ex-News at Ten presenter, 63, was handed a six-month sentence, suspended for two, by Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring during a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today.

Edwards sat forward with his hands together, pressed against his lips, as Mr Goldspring told him: “The impact of child sexual abuse can be severe and lifelong.” He is also obliged to attend a programme designed to stop him offending again after pleading guilty to three charges of making indecent images of children after he was sent 41 illegal images by Alex Williams, a convicted paedophile.

As he handed down the sentence, the chief magistrate said he accepted evidence that Edwards had no recollection of viewing the indecent images due to his mental health issues at the time of the offences. The court heard that Edwards had struggled with his sexuality since 1994 and that there was currently a “tangible risk” of suicide.

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Edwards received 377 sexual images from Williams including 41 indecent images of children, of which seven were category A (the worst), 12 were category B and 22, category C. In his opening statement at the hearing, prosecutor Ian Hope said: “It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature.

“It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money – low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis – to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending pornographic images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted.

“Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.” Hope said Edwards did not respond after Williams sent him a sexual video of children aged around seven to nine and 11 to 13 and that there was evidence that he had asked for illegal images not to be sent.

The prosecutor said: “On 10 February 2021, a category A video was sent which is notable because the age of one of the children involved was significantly younger than in the rest of the images sent – it showed several acts of penetration between two children aged around seven to nine and 11 to 13 respectively.

“There was no direct response from Mr Edwards to this video, beyond it being marked as ‘read’. A week later … a number of attachments were sent, which included two category B videos and four category C still images comprising indecent images of children.

“On 19 February 2021, Alex Williams asked: ‘Is the stuff I’m sending too young for you?’ The next response from Mr Edwards is dated 22 February 2021 saying: ‘Don’t send underage.’” The court heard, however, that Edwards told Williams “go on” when asked if he wanted “naughty pics and vids” of somebody described as “yng (sic)“.

He wrote: “yes xxx” when he was asked by Williams if he wanted sexual images of a person whose “age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16”.