A mother has been jailed for helping her police officer son who used Snapchat to groom more than 200 girls.
Lewis Edwards, 25, was given a life sentence last year and was sentenced for further offences on Tuesday.
Edwards is a former South Wales Police officer and is serving a minimum of 12 years after he lost an appeal against his sentence in May.
His mother Rebekah Edwards, 48, had pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice.
Recorder of Cardiff Tracey Lloyd-Clarke sentenced her to two years in prison today.
The judge said she had considered whether the sentence could be suspended but said the offending was “too serious” for anything other than an immediate custodial sentence.
Edwards will serve half of her sentence in custody before she is released on licence.
Cardiff Crown Court heard that a search warrant was executed at his home address on 8 February 2023.
Prosecuting, Roger Griffiths said “a number of electronic devices were recovered in the course of the police search” but that Lewis Edwards declined to give passwords to police.
In July 2023, South Wales Police were informed Rebekah Edwards had recovered two mobile phones.
“It was reported to the police that Mrs Edwards had asked [Lewis Edwards] what she should do with the phones,” Mr Griffiths added.
“Lewis Edwards had said: ‘Bury the black one’.”
Rebekah Edwards initially handed over two phones, but she was then asked by police about a report they’d received of a phone in the garden.
“I buried the phone in the garden when I buried the cat,” she told officers.
Mr Griffiths told the court the recovered device “was a black mobile telephone with a smashed screen”.
Due to its damage the phone was “incapable of examination”, the prosecution said.
“We say there was no reason for her to retain any of the phones,” Mr Griffiths added.
Andrew Davies, defending Lewis Edwards, said there was “very little that can be said” but that “the best mitigation [was] his guilty pleas”.
“He regrets that he’s embroiled others in his offending,” Mr Davies added.
After Lewis Edwards was sentenced last year, Assistant Chief Constable Danny Richards said there was “no place” for “anyone who abuses the personal responsibility they hold as a police officer” in South Wales Police.
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