Aberystwyth father jailed for drugging and assaulting teen

A father-of-three from Aberystwyth has been jailed for five years after drugging a teenage girl with cocaine before sexually assaulting her in his car.

Gareth Edwards, 36, of Bridge Street, Aberystwyth, gave his young victim cocaine and twice sexually assaulted her in his vehicle in the town in May last year. During the attack, the teenager’s phone rang but Edwards stopped her from answering it. He later told her not to tell the police about what had happened.

Following a public appeal by officers for information, Edwards was located and arrested. Despite denying the allegations, he was convicted at trial of sexual assault and assault by penetration.

Swansea Crown Court heard a powerful victim impact statement read by prosecution barrister Helen Randall, in which the teenager described how the assault had fundamentally changed her. She said she has gone from being a “bubbly person with lots of friends” who enjoyed socialising to being “withdrawn” and more isolated.

The victim said Edwards had given her cocaine to take advantage of her and “he knows what he did that night”. She added that giving evidence at the trial had been stressful and at one stage she had not been sure if she could go ahead with it, but she said she did it “to keep other girls safe”.

The court heard Edwards has 24 previous convictions for 27 offences. His most recent conviction was for malicious communications in December 2023, for which he was given a community order that he went on to breach five times.

Defence barrister Darren Almeida said it was clear from the pre-sentence report that Edwards maintains his innocence. He told the court the complainant had consumed a number of substances on the night in question and said there was no evidence that the defendant had pressurised or forced her into taking cocaine, asking the court to find that cocaine had not been used to facilitate the offending.

Mr Almeida said the father-of-three had been acting as a Welsh language mentor while on remand in prison and had a trusted job, and he said “to use the vernacular” his client just wants to “keep his head down” while in custody.

Sentencing Edwards, Judge Huw Rees told him the complainant had been intoxicated, vulnerable, and two decades his junior when she got into his car on the night in question.

He told him: “You took advantage of the situation. You took advantage of her for what she was or what you perceived her to be.”

Edwards will serve half his five-year sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. He will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.