3 days Ago By [email protected] (Daniel Bird, Sam Huntley)
paid money in exchange for abusive images of children, a court has heard. The disgraced News At Ten anchor has pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of a child after being sent 41 illegal pictures by convicted paedo Alex Williams over WhatsApp. Now, Westminster Magistrates Court has heard that the 63-year-old sent money for the criminal pictures and offered him a " gift".
Opening the case at court on Monday (September 16), prosecutor Ian Hope said: "It is clear from the face of the WhatsApp chat recovered that a deal of the chat between Alex Williams and Mr Edwards was sexual in nature. It is also clear that Mr Edwards was paying not insignificant sums of money low hundreds of pounds on an occasional basis to Alex Williams which Mr Williams directly asked for on several occasions, as gifts or presents, apparently off the back of sending abusive images to Mr Edwards, about which images they chatted." "Alex Williams has stated that the money was more generally to support him at university and amounted to around £1,000 to £1,500.
The bulk of the images were sexual images featuring younger-looking adult males, and therefore lawful. However, a significant minority proportion of the images recovered were IIOC. From the WhatsApp Chat recovered a total of around 377 sexual images were sent to Mr Edwards, of which 41 comprised IIOC (just over 10%).
" The court heard how Alex Williams asked for a "Christmas gift after all the hot videos". Prosecutor Ian Hope said the convicted paedophile offered to send 12 videos in December 2020 and Edwards responded that he could not see the latest batch but "the others were amazing". The court heard a new link contained a Category C image of a child aged around 12 to 14 and a Category A image.
The prosecutor continued: "Three-quarters of an hour later, Alex Williams again asks for 'a Christmas gift after all the hot videos' and Mr Edwards immediately responds 'What do you need?'. "Alex Williams says he wants some Air Force 1 trainers that cost around £100, and Mr Edwards offers to send him £200." Williams, from Wales, had also pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing category A, B and C images as well as possessing prohibited images of children.
He was sentenced to a suspended 12-month jail sentence at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on March 15. He sent Edwards 377 images, 41 of which were indecent. The court heard how Edwards replied: "Yes xxx," when he was asked if he wanted sexual images of an individual whose "age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16.
" Hope added: "From that chat in December 2020, Alex Williams said that he had 'a file of vids and pics for you of someone special'." "Mr Edwards immediately queried who the subject was and was then sent three images of seemingly the same person, from two of which images the subject's age could be discerned as being between 14 and 16. These two were category C indecent images of children in which the child was exposing his penis.
Alex Williams stated that he had '12 videos and 42 pics I've sent you a video of him before'. Shortly after Alex Williams asked: 'Want me to send you the full file?' Mr Edwards responded 'Yes xxx..
.', and Alex Williams sent to Mr Edwards around 30 attachments, about half of which were category C indecent images of children." Williams made contact with Edwards in early 2018 and they exchanged sexual images for more than four years.
Edwards described some of the abuse images as "amazing", the court heard. In one exchange, Williams sent Edwards a Category A child abuse image, to which Edwards replied, "F***". The pair then wished each other a Happy Christmas.
Westminster Magistrates' Court was told Huw Edwards did not respond after a convicted paedophile sent him a sexual video of children aged around seven to nine and 11 to 13. Prosecutor Hope said: "On February 10, 2021, a category A video was sent which is notable because the age of one of the children involved was significantly younger than in the rest of the images sent it showed several acts of penetration between two children aged around seven to nine and 11 to 13 respectively. "There was no direct response from Mr Edwards to this video, beyond it being marked as 'read'.
A week later...
a number of attachments were sent which included two Category B videos and four Category C still images comprising indecent images of children. On February 19 2021, Alex Williams asked 'Is the stuff I'm sending too young for you?' The next response from Mr Edwards is dated February 22 2021 saying 'don't send underage'." The trial continues.
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