Paedophile policeman Lewis Edwards blackmailed more than 200 girls into sending sexual images to him

A police officer who blackmailed teenage girls into performing sex acts on themselves had more than 200 victims, a court has heard.

Lewis Edwards, 24, of Bridgend, posed as a 14-year-old boy on social media and forced his victims to make indecent videos and images of themselves, which he secretly recorded.

The ex-police officer refused to attend his sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court, which is due to last three days. It has continued in his absence.

The court heard that Edwards was in contact with 210 girls and the investigation by South Wales Police revealed the age range of Edwards' victims to be between 10 and 16-years-old.

Many of them were groomed on the social media app Snapchat between 2020 and 2023 after he posed as a teenager and forced his victims to make indecent videos and images of themselves.

Edwards then used the recordings to blackmail his victims into sending increasingly graphic and explicit images, which involved the victims to engage in sexual acts.

He also sent videos performing a sex act to some of his victims.

The court was shown some of the videos Edwards had recorded of his victims. In one, a teenage girl can be seen crying and wiping tears from her eyes.

Edwards messages her: "So hot, good girl, now get ur bra off yh x".

She later begs him not to make her send him any more videos, and Edwards replies: "Good... But ur gonna have to make more."

In a victim impact statement, the girl described Edwards as a "paedophile" and added: "I was a little girl. I feel embarrassed, disgusted and abused. I lost my innocence.

"I know the police are there to help us but how can I call the police now if I am in danger? I would not be able to trust the people who are there to keep us safe," she said.

Edwards, who joined the force in January 2021, had previously pleaded guilty to 162 child sex offences.

The ex-South Wales Police officer, was caught by his own force after they received intelligence about the downloading of indecent images from the dark web.

Roger Griffiths, prosecuting, said detectives raided the home Edwards shared with his parents in Bridgend, South Wales, in February this year and seized mobile phones, a computer, USB sticks a hard drive and a blackmail manual.

Mr Griffiths said: "His requests for the girls to engage in various sexual activities ranging from exposing their breasts and genitalia to penetrating themselves with their fingers and objects, his recording and keeping of the images he obtained, and blackmailing of the children for more indecent images they refused to provide more images.

"He would say he was going to post images he already had to friends and relatives of the victims."

After being caught, Edwards was identified, arrested and subsequently resigned from the force, before an accelerated misconduct hearing dismissed him from his job.

The hearing continues.