The burning question for many tonight is why was Huw Edwards not sent to prison? The simple answer is … there is no simple and uniform solution for dealing with offenders.
The offence he committed could in theory lead to 10 years in jail.
But, in practice, detailed sentencing guidelines, developed over years of comparing varying cases, save that severe punishment for the worst of the worst people who are producing the images that Williams scooped up and went on to share.
Edwards, by receiving them, was at the bottom of that chain of abuse.
So his sentence was always going to be well short of that maximum 10 years – and, likely to be shorter than the 12 months suspended sentence given to Alex Williams in March.
The guidelines say that for someone in Edwards position, the starting point is a year in jail with a range between six months and three years.
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring began his sentencing calculation with a year. He knocked three months off to take into account the mental health evidence and the fact that this was a first offence. This is absolutely standard procedure.
He then discounted the sentence by a third, bringing it down to six months, to credit the earliest possible guilty plea. Again, this discount for an admission is a standard feature of sentencing law. It is an offer to focus an offender’s mind on pleading guilty early and accepting their crimes. It saves a huge amount of public money by tying up the criminal justice system with a jury trial. And it means, if the offender if willing, they can get on with the long and hard process of rehabilitation as soon as possible.
The next question was whether Edwards needed to be jailed to protect the public. The chief magistrate concluded not, because he accepted evidence that the offender before him had already understood the gravity of what he had done – and was responding to therapy.
And so he moved down a notch from immediate jail to a suspended six month sentence. That means that if Edwards were to commit another offence in the next two years, he would be likely to go to jail immediately. But if he stays on the road to reform, he won’t.
The prosecution had argued that Edwards needed to be subject to restrictions on his liberties through a Sexual Harm Prevention Order. That would have allowed agencies to monitor or curtail his communications and movements – including knowing his entire internet history on every device he uses.
The court heard that probation experts had used a “predictor tool” to estimate the likelihood of Edwards reoffending. It had found his risk of indirect internet-based offending – meaning viewing more images – to be medium.
But his lawyers argued that risk was diminishing because he was on the mend and shown genuine remorse.
The chief magistrate said that it was not necessary to subject Edwards to the additional SHPO conditions, given the progress towards rehabilitation already underway.
Edwards must complete a 40-day Sex Offender Treatment Programme and 25 rehabilitation sessions aimed at helping him to fix his mental health and use of alcohol.
Even if all that is successful, there is a sting in the sentencing tail.
For the next seven years Edwards will be on the sex offender register – meaning he has to keep the police informed of his whereabouts. It will be difficult for him to travel abroad on holiday and some countries may never let him in at all.
He’s free from prison – but he is not free in the true sense of the word. His life choices will be watched on and off for years to come.
