PERVERT Huw Edwards is just one of a growing number of online paedophiles spared jail, a Sun probe reveals.
His case came amid dozens walking free despite sharing more than a million child abuse images in total.
Only 20 per cent of such cases result in prison, say experts.
Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch wants a review of guidelines.
Britain’s “two-tier” justice system was laid bare by the probe which identified 27 prosecutions in the past nine months where judges allowed those trading in sick photos and videos to walk free.
Over the same time, scores of cases — including those of a failed bike thief and woman who nicked Creme Eggs — saw defendants locked up for more than 17 years.
Fury erupted as former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards left court on Monday with a six-month jail term suspended for two years for viewing depraved online material.
Experts warned yesterday that less than 20 per cent of paedos convicted of accessing child abuse images get custodial sentences.
Yet NSPCC data shows police logged more than 33,000 offences where child abuse images were collected and distributed last year — up by 25 per cent in a year.
Our probe found an ex-mayor, an actor, a secondary school teacher, an academic and a sex offender who later set up a paedophile ring, who all got a slap on the wrist.
Defendants were released with suspended jail sentences, handed rehabilitation orders and placed on the sex offenders register.
On the day Edwards left court in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes, homeless Michael King, 44, was starting an eight-month term for stealing five vacuum cleaners in Ely, Cambs.
Stephen McDonagh, 37, of Kidlington, Oxfordshire, was starting a one-month stretch for stealing a bike in Welwyn, Herts.
Yet ex-university researcher Ralph Harrington, 58, avoided prison despite downloading 362,500 child abuse images after “a relapse”.
His hoard, amassed over eight years, included nearly 3,000 images rated Category A, the worst kind.
He even had a previous conviction for making indecent images.
At his sentencing, Harrington, of York, was given a year’s jail, suspended for two years, and placed on the sex offenders register.
Days later, cake thief Joseph Clarke, of Sittingbourne, Kent, was jailed four months for stealing £64.80 of country slices and cherry bakewells from a Co-op.
In July, Joshua Pope, 26, who taught kids as young as 11 in Plymouth, got a suspended jail term despite downloading 786 images and videos of child sexual abuse.
Like Edwards he blamed his depravity on isolation during Covid.
Actor Daniel Frogson, 21, who appeared in BBC’s His Dark Materials, was caught with 845 indecent images and got an eight-month jail term, suspended for two years.
Earlier this month, jobless Thomas Dyke, 24, of Pontypool, avoided jail too — despite having sex abuse images of a two-year-old.
Our investigation also examined the case of Matthew Mather-Franks, 39, who in 2016 was spared jail for possessing indecent images.
By 2022 he was the ringleader of a group live-streaming sexual abuse of children and infants who appeared drugged or intoxicated.
A search of his devices found a further 1,487 images of child abuse.
Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch told our Never Mind the Ballots show: “There’s something very wrong. It feels like there is a two-tier system where some people, or some crimes, are looked at differently from much more minor ones, and we don’t want that.
“It shouldn’t matter whether you have money or you work for the BBC or you’ve been on TV, you should be punished for having committed something as serious as that. It is extremely serious.”
Ms Badenoch called for an urgent overhaul of sentencing rules.
Ex-Met Det Chief Insp Mick Neville added: “The public are quite rightfully questioning why Huw Edwards only receives a suspended sentence when others are sent to jail for much less serious matters.”
The National Crime Agency estimated 830,000 adults in the UK pose some degree of sexual menace to youngsters.
Lisa McKrindle, from the Centre for Expertise on Child Abuse, said half a million children are abused each year for the gratification of online paedos.
She said: “There would have been hearings like this up and down the country. We need to get to grips with the frequency of these events and the scale.
“Overall in 2022/23 there were 105,000 offences recorded by police. Really big increase of 14 per cent in that year of image offences. 40,000 image-based abuses.
“We estimate that at least 500,000 are abused each year.”
Edwards’ lawyer Philip Evans described the offences as “repugnant” as he apologised on his client’s behalf to the court and his family.
The public are quite rightfully questioning why Huw Edwards only receives a suspended sentence when others are sent to jail for much less serious matters
Ex-Met Det Chief Insp Mick Neville
But Jim Gamble, former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command Centre, said he knew “there wasn’t a hope” of Edwards going to prison.
He told Times Radio: “Less than 20 per cent of individuals convicted of this type of offence actually receive a custodial sentence.”
And he said allowing offenders to walk free meant there was no active deterrent. Retired Met Chief Supt Simon Ovens said online paedophile offences like those committed by Edwards, “are often treated as a victimless crime”.
But he stressed: “Behind every one of those real images there is a child victim who has been abused in the most appalling manner.”
Rani Govender, at the NSPCC, said: “Online child sexual abuse is at record levels and offenders like Edwards who fuel this crime should be in no doubt about its severity and the impact it has on victims.
“Companies must act by putting in technology that can identify and disrupt child abuse images being shared on their messaging services.”
THE HUW Edwards scandal has rightly provoked revulsion and anger at the leniency of sentences given to offenders viewing sexual images of children.
It has also given rise to suspicion of a two-tier justice system with offences which cause children to suffer harrowing abuse being taken less seriously than some petty crimes.
This is an issue which has been hiding in plain sight for many years and which is only now attracting attention after disgraced former BBC presenter Edwards walked free from court.
Better late than never.
Currently there are more offenders accessing illegal images of children than ever with the sheer volume meaning only a small percentage of them will ever be brought before courts.
The NSPCC estimates up to 500,000 men have viewed child sexual abuse images in the UK – yes, really.
Analysis of police data by the charity suggests 33,000 men – and it is a male issue – arrested last year had illegal images of children – a 25% rise on the previous 12 months.
And it’s a growing problem with emerging artificial intelligence technology creating new ways of creating illegal images.
Organised criminal networks are also continuing to exploit the dark web to cater for the massive online paedophile market and make money from evil.
The scale of the problem means the National Crime Agency and police forces often have to cherry pick targets of importance – primarily those with access to children.
Like Edwards, many of those who are caught will have been trawled by cops through the domino effect of one offender’s digital devices leading to another.
Police undercover units are also tracking paedophiles online and arrested 1,700 men last year.
Laudable though those efforts may be, it only represents a drop in the ocean in terms of tackling the overall problem.
It is therefore imperative that when offenders like Edwards are brought to justice that a message of deterrence is sent out to others like him.
Only by jailing offenders will the message get through that such conduct is unacceptable in a civilised society.
If that means finding new prison spaces – perhaps by locking up offenders in disused Army barracks or ships offshore until the Government’s seven new jails are built – then so be it. The money will have been well spent.
The consequences of failing to do so will be the continued erosion of public faith in a criminal justice system which can treat the theft of cakes more seriously than the suffering of children.
By Mike Sullivan, Crime Editor
