Pervert’s picture shames golf club

Photo: Paul Sterritt

Tim Edwards when he was Saddleworth Golf Club captain.

GOLF club officials have been asked to remove a picture from its place of honour of a former captain jailed for being a paedophile.

Timothy Edwards (56), was jailed for six years earlier this year for having sex with a 14-year-old girl he groomed online and was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely. He was club captain in 2012.

Now a long-time member of Saddleworth Golf Club is demanding Edwards’ picture is removed from over a doorway in the club’s main bar area, where it accompanies pictures of other captains and presidents.

Businessman Andy Thornton, father of two and a club member more than 18 years, emailed the club’s general manager requesting the picture’s removal.

Mr Thornton (50), from Friezland said: “It seems the club committee couldn’t decide what to do about it. What I can’t understand is why this should be a debate. Take Edwards’s name away, take his title away and what is left is a picture of a sex offender. There really is no discussion. We have celebrities hauled over the coals for the same offences and my golf club thinks it’s right to turn a blind eye. So much for morals.”

In an email to Mr Thornton club general manager Alastair Griffiths said: “The decision taken by the committee was to give further consideration before applying any action - because it wasn’t clear where to draw the line, if indeed Edwards needed to be expunged from the records.”

When the Chronicle called Mr Griffiths he wouldn’t comment further.

In February 2013, Edwards met his victim, who was 13, on a social media website. He began chatting to her and asked her to send him explicit pictures and videos, but she refused. He later persuaded her to meet with him. In early December he had sex with her a her home. After his arrest in January 2014 police found15 indecent images of children on his computer.

Edwards, of Walk Mill, Dobcross, pleaded guilty to three offences of sexual activity with a child. The father-of-two also pleaded guilty to inciting an under-age girl to engage in sexual activity, and five offences involving indecent photographs of a child.

On January 29 this year he was sentenced to six years in prison and must also sign the sex offenders register indefinitely.