A church minister and former BBC news presenter has been handed a 10-year prison sentence for sexually abusing children and adults. Ben Thomas who is 44 and from Flintshire pleaded guilty to 40 individual offences which included indecent assault as well as voyeurism.
The offences were committed across a 29-year period in North Wales, Shropshire, London, and Romania. Mold Crown Court was told that Thomas’ crimes took place between 1990 and last year.
In July of this year Thomas admitted 10 counts of sexual activity with a child, eight sexual assaults and four attempts to commit sexual assault. In addition to this he also pleaded guilty to nine indecent assaults, seven counts of voyeurism and two counts of making indecent videos of children, amongst others.
UNN’s Oliver Down understands that Thomas has previously worked on Wales Today and as well as Ffeil which is the Welsh language news programme for young people ran by the BBC.
When handing down the sentence the Judge Timothy Petts said: “For nearly 30 years until your arrest in 2019, you hid a dark secret – namely that you were a prolific sex abuser, the vast majority of your victims being teenage boys. Your crimes started when you yourself were a teenager. They continued through to the time that you were a respected church leader and, to make matters worse, you abused that position to find and select potential victims – some of them in your own home.”
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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