Mum of Snapchat pervert cop tried to cover his crimes by burying evidence in cat's grave

Rebekah Edwards, the mum of convicted paedophile Lewis Edwards, was found to have perverted the course of justice after she buried a phone likely containing child abuse material

The mum of a convicted paedo former cop who used Snapchat to groom hundreds of girls online has been handed a two-year sentence for burying evidence vital to her son's case in a cat's grave.

Lewis Edwards, 25, previously of Cefn Glas, Bridgend, in Wales, used Snapchat to groom more than 200 girls online and admitted 160 counts of child sexual abuse and blackmail involving 4,500 indecent images of children. The former South Wales Police officer lured his victims by pretending to be a boy aged between 10 and 16 before psychologically manipulating, bullying, threatening, and exploiting them into sending indecent images of themselves.

Courts heard the twisted abuser used a screen recorder to capture footage of the girls while forcing them to strip naked and abuse themselves as they sobbed and begged him to stop. The former police officer was handed a life sentence for the crime, and his mum has now been jailed for two years for helping him hide evidence.

Rebekah Edwards, 48, of Longfellow Drive, Cefn Glas, has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice after admitting to hiding one of her son's devices in a grave she dug for her pet cat. Police received intelligence after initially remanding Edwards in custody in 2023 that his mother had recovered two phones belonging to her son, who had told her to "bury the black one".

She complied, and later admitted to police when confronted with the intelligence that she "buried the phone in the garden when I buried the cat". Prosecutor Roger Griffiths said a black phone with a smashed screen was dug up by Mark Edwards. Despite the best efforts of the police, the buried phone could not be opened due to the SIM card being damaged beyond repair.

Mr Griffiths said what was contained on the phone would "never be known". One other phone provided to police by Edwards' mother was found to contain one category A indecent image of a child aged between 13 to 15 years old. A category B image depicted children aged between 10 and 15 and there were two category C images.

Both Edwards pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. Lewis Edwards also pleaded guilty to three counts of possessing indecent images of children between 2016 and 2023. He was sentenced to a total of three years and eight months imprisonment, to be served concurrently with his life sentence.

Rebekah Edwards was sentenced to two years imprisonment. She will serve half the sentence in custody before she is released to serve the remainder on licence. Following the hearing, Lucy Dowdall from the Crown Prosecution Service said Rebekah Edwards "knew of the continued investigation into his offending behaviour" at the time and "demonstrated a lack of concern for the devastating impact of her son’s actions on innumerable young people and their families.

She added: "Her sole concern was for her paedophile son and not for his victims or helping them secure the justice they deserved. The fact that Lewis Edwards involved his own family members shows how far he was prepared to go to cover up his offending, and his continued lack of remorse for his abhorrent behaviour."