The suspended sentence handed to former BBC anchor Huw Edwards is an “insult to the victims and survivors” of such crimes, it has been claimed.
Edwards was handed a six month sentence, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to paying for an estimated 41 indecent images of children.
Speaking out on the court’s ruling, BBC director-general Tim Davie has admitted that the sentencing of their formerly most-paid journalist “impacts our reputation”, and that he “can’t see Huw Edwards working at the BBC again”.
Discussing the payment of £200,000 to Edwards following his arrest and prior to his official resignation from the broadcaster, Davie said they had “acted in good faith” at the time, but made clear that the company now “wants it back” and has “asked for it back”.
Sharing her experience of working with victims and survivors of abuse, trauma therapist Zoe Clews stressed that some victims of such crimes “take a lifetime to recover”, but he was only given “six months in his sentencing”.
Clews told GB News: “I work with the victims and I work with survivors, and I have done for many years. These children who have been subject to atrocity grow up into adults, and those adults have to spend decades, if not whole lifetimes, recovering.
“It’s the worst possible thing that can happen to a child, perhaps apart from seeing your own parents getting murdered. I cannot think of a single thing that is worse. And the impact on a child’s psyche is shattering, and that doesn’t just disappear as they become an adult.”
Criticising the court’s sentencing of Edwards, Clews claimed that although the case regards the “most heinous crime”, a term of just six months is “nothing new” in the British justice system.
Clews said: “Here we are with the most heinous crime, and it’s six months. The worst thing is this is nothing new.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
Tim Davie says he STILL thinks BBC right to pay Huw Edwards after arrest… before demanding money back moments laterBev Turner blasts ‘dark and depraved’ Huw Edwards in blistering rant: ‘Two-tier justice!’Huw Edwards lambasted by campaigner over suspended sentence: ‘Grubby little TOAD!’
“The National Crime Agency said last year that eight in 10 people convicted in the UK over child abuse images avoid prison. So what’s going on? This is disgusting. It has to change.”
Detailing the many ways in which sexual abuse can affect an individual, Clews told GB News that their ability to live day to day sees a “devastating impact”.
She explained: “It can show up in all areas of their life – financially, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, sexually, their ability to work, their ability to have relationships, their ability to get out of bed in the morning, their ability to function. It devastates people.
“We’ve always lived in a very sick, dysfunctional world, and things like the internet have made it more accessible, more easy for abusers to get access to children, which is disgusting.”
She was then questioned by host Andrew Pierce on whether the guidelines on the sentencing of such crimes needs to be changed in order to send criminals to prison for longer.
Clews said: “Legality and morality are two very different things, but for the sake of child abuse victims, morality should now become legality. And we’re just seeing another situation where law and justice are not bedfellows.
“There’s more awareness, there’s more recovery groups of people, and there’s more charities. People are able to speak about it more.
“Social media has allowed people to speak about it more as well. And they’ve been praised for their bravery. Because when somebody does that, of course, it allows another survivor to feel less ashamed of their own experience.”
