Huw Edwards is on Substack

The child sex offender hopes to offer, with his considerable experience, his thoughts on the issues of the day.

That’s some funky looking font, Huw.

(True story - when I put it into a font finder, the closest thing it came up with was Curmudgeon Regular.)

It’s not quite two years since disgraced newsreader Huw Edwards was convicted of multiple child sex offences and exposed as a groomer of a teenage boy, offering him money for sexual services and images.

Since then, there’s been a Channel 5 drama based on testimony from the young man who says Edwards sent him thousands of pounds in exchange for sexual videos and in-person encounters in hotels.

And so far, the tone of all communications from Edwards has been rather churlish, demonstrating an obvious disgruntlement at not being asked for his side of the story.

His opening post on Substack begins with his legs planted far apart, trying to establish gravitas, despite being on the Sex Offenders’ Register.

“After four decades years in broadcast journalism — with a focus on Welsh, British and French politics — I am still a keen observer of events.”

Hey, I’m not one to call out a typo. Lord knows my writing is full of them at the best of times and it’s usually because I am typing very quickly in order to respond to the latest sex offender trying to move among us like nothing has happened.

But the ‘four decades years’ is unfortunate for an opening sentence. You’d think he’d have ducked back in and changed that.

As to ‘a keen oberver of events’ I expect there’s little else for him to do at present, other than observe events keenly from his impotent seat by the window, the Jimmy Stewart of west Wales, news channel streaming in the background as he laments how unkindly the world has treated him.

“There will be some who do not wish to read my work,
and I respect that choice.”

Well, that’s almost self-knowledge, isn’t it? He’s at least aware that some of us had hoped never to hear from him again. Unless perhaps he publishes a lengthy tract where he finally demonstrates some awareness that it was not a failure of the Crown Prosecution Service or the Police or any aspect of the criminal justice system which lead him to where he is now.

But that every aspect of his current situation is a direct result of his own actions. Not his depression’s actions. His.

Neurodiversity and depression do not cause people to offend. Gregg Wallace didn’t sex pest women because he’s autistic.

Edwards didn’t ask to see images of children being abused because he was clinically sad. But he seems to suggest that there’s an understanding gap in our knowledge of his particular condition.

“I am also ready to be unflinchingly honest about the reality of long-term mental illness, and the continued failure to recognise its devastating effects…”

Yeah, Huw. We know. Depression made you do it.

His unflinching honesty is really only going to be of use when he stops blaming mental health for the actions of a morally bankrupt, empathy-free individual who recklessly abused his privilege.

We’ve talked about comebacks before, and they used to, in times gone by, involve some kind of rehabilitation. A period of learning and contrition, even if it was just for show.

But now, someone can literally be convicted of the most abhorrent thing imaginable and they still think it’s just a matter of letting time pass before they renew their place in the social order.

The same place, mind. Not a lesser one.

He strikes me as a man so unwilling to assume the beta position, so unable to say ‘oh god, there’s no excuse for what I did and I need help’ that he’s just never going to learn from this.

Yeah but. That’s what our teachers used to say when we wouldn’t accept responsibility for what we’d done. Yeah but it wasn’t me. Yeah but Darren broke it I wasn’t even there.

They’re children. Adults take responsibility.

If Edwards had in fact been sent to prison, the first thing he’d have had to do is admit his crimes. Because child sex offenders are offered the chance to go to a sex offenders-only facility if - and only if - they agree to enter a rehabilitation programme.

The other option is to maintain your innocence and take your chances in a regular prison. And we know what often happens to paedophiles there.

It’s the entitlement that gets me. With any man pubicly shamed for abusive behaviour. They stick their noses in the air and assume the role of the wronged man.

We saw it with Jermaine Jenas last week as his dander visibly rose when he was asked the simplest of questions. Their admissions are generalised and made to shut down further inquiry.

They’ll never pass up the opportunity to grasp the narrative steering wheel back because, deep down, they truly believe we’ll all be sorry one day for treating them like this.

God, it’s so boring.

Huw Edwards currently has 12 subscribers. Twelve people actively following a convicted nonce. Jeez.