Halstead: Officer gets paedophile's sentence extended

A convicted paedophile, jailed for sexually assaulting a teenage boy and filming himself abusing two others, has had his jail sentence increased thanks to work by our specialist officers.

Stuart Edwards was jailed for three years in October having previously admitted:

• Five counts of sexual assault;
• Three counts of taking an indecent image of a child;
• One count of voyeurism.

The 34 year-old, formerly of Market Street, Thetford – who used to go by the name Sam Crouch – had been arrested in September 2018 after we had received a report he had sexually assaulted a teenage boy in Halstead and indecent images had subsequently been found on his computer.

When he was arrested his laptop and mobile phone were seized and forensically examined.

On the devices were found a number videos including one which showed a teenage boy drying off in a cubicle of a leisure park, and two which showed Edwards sexually abusing two different boys.

Officers from the Police Online Investigation Team, which protects children from online child sexual abuse, were able to identify each of the children in the videos.

Since then, investigating officer Detective Sergeant Paul Ross, from our Management of Sexual Offenders and Violent Offenders team (MOSOVO) appealed against the sentence for being unduly lenient.

At the Court of Appeal on Tuesday (18 January), Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, Mr Justice Picken, and Her Honour Judge Dhir QC increased Edwards’ sentence to five years in prison.

DS Ross said:

“Stuart Edwards poses a very real danger to children and this decision acknowledges that.

“He documented the abuse he inflicted and now faces the foreseeable future behind bars.

“The victims showed incredible bravery in reporting what had happened to them. I hope this decision will represent justice for them.”