Locking up Huw Edwards would have had a deterrent effect – I’ve spoken to sick paedophiles… they don’t just watch abuse videos

During the forty years that I have been campaigning to stop child sexual abuse, several victims have told me that videos and images of their rape and torture have ended up online.

I have also spoken to men who have committed the crime to gain access to child abuse images, what the police describe as a ‘crime scene’. This is, simply put, child sexual abuse.

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These men initially only watched porn with adult women, but became more and more daring, eventually taking a risk by paying for the most extreme content.

However, this risk is minimal: most men (the majority of child abusers are men) who commit these crimes are never caught.

And even if it does and it goes to court, chances are they’ll get off with a suspended sentence.

But if former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards, as a public figure, had been made an example of and sent to prison, the flood of press coverage would undoubtedly have had a chilling effect on thousands of men.

That’s why I support The Sun’s campaign for tougher punishments: Keep Our Kids Safe.

The scale of the problem is shocking.

According to research published last year by Childlight, a global child safety institute based at the University of Edinburgh, one in 10 men has committed sexual crimes against children, online or offline.

The leniency with which child abusers are treated is at least partly responsible for this, because it reinforces the sense that because there is a computer screen between viewer and victim, the crime and the harm are somehow less ‘real’, and therefore less mean-spirited.

This is blatantly untrue.

There is no getting around it: there has to be child abuse for there to be child abuse.

In every case where I have encountered a man who abducted and raped a child, it started with him gaining access to images of child abuse.

I believe that men who abuse children within their own families often use these horrific images to further fuel their sadistic urges.

Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood will soon lead a sentencing review that will consider toughening penalties for crimes against children, including making prison sentences mandatory for criminals like Edwards, who were convicted of watching and/or sharing Category A child sexual abuse images.

According to the National Crime Agency, eight in 10 people convicted for such images are currently avoiding prison.

Horrible crimes

I agree that anyone found in possession of category A material should be jailed. The level of abuse that goes into producing these images is appalling.

There should be zero tolerance, but as things stand now, men can use and share this material without much fear of repercussions.

And the crime doesn’t stop at looking. Those who walk this path often commit even more serious, more heinous crimes.

The link between freely available, regular pornography and illegal images of child abuse is also undeniable.

Increasingly, images of child abuse are normalizing the idea of ​​sexual intercourse with a “teenager.” Mainstream sites offer legal videos with titles like Daddy I Don’t Want To Go To School or Teen Used And Abused.

The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a UK child protection charity, has found that legal material – mainly viewed by men browsing sites such as Pornhub – can serve as a gateway to illegal content showing real children being abused by adults.

In the UK, the viewing and downloading of child pornography is on the rise.

Julie Bindel

If the porn industry is the primary source of sex education for boys and encourages men to develop fantasies about sex with children, what are the chances of us curbing the tide of child sexual abuse?

According to the National Council of Police Chiefs, 35 percent of households raided for viewing images of child sexual abuse had children of their own.

In 2021/22, an average of 848 arrests were made per month for downloading indecent images of children. That number has more than doubled in the past decade.

In the UK, the viewing and downloading of child pornography is on the rise.

According to the Internet Watch Foundation, the number of child sexual abuse images increased by more than 20 percent between 2021 and 2022.

Our prisons are overcrowded and our justice system is in disarray.

A life sentence

But in a world where, despite the efforts of dedicated detectives, such images continue to proliferate (and create more victims) and become more accessible, doesn’t this crime deserve the harshest punishment?

Following Edwards’ conviction, Childlight has revealed that an estimated 1.8 million men in the UK are guilty of this heinous crime.

The institute estimates that 300 million children worldwide are victims of sexual abuse and exploitation on the Internet every year.

What will it take to make the courts take this seriously?

When a defense attorney or judge suggests that sending these men to prison will permanently destroy their reputations, we have to ask ourselves: What happens to the lives of the victims? They are living a life sentence.

If we have to make room for anyone in our prisons, it should be the men who abuse our children. Otherwise, many more children will be forced to endure this abuse.