KEMI Badenoch has blasted Huw Edwards dodging jail as “two tier” justice – and called for an urgent overhaul of sentencing rules.
The Tory leadership hopeful said it was “extraordinary” the disgraced BBC presenter walked free yesterday despite being convicted of making indecent images of kids.
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A backlash has erupted after Edwards was let off with a six-month suspended jail sentence at court.
Speaking on Never Mind The Ballots, ex-Cabinet Minister Ms Badenoch railed against rich and powerful figures like the shamed newsreader being treated differently.
She said: “I think it’s extraordinary. And I’ve been talking about this with quite a few people.
“And if I did become leader of the opposition, I’d be commissioning a review of sentencing guidelines.
“There’s something that’s not right, there’s something very wrong. And it feels like there is a two-tier system where some people, or some crimes, are looked at differently from much more minor ones, and we don’t want that.
“It does feel like there are certain people who are policed in a way that is a lot more strict for very minor things, and we need to have a faith in our justice system.
“But also a key Conservative principle is equality under the law. It shouldn’t matter whether you have money or you work for the BBC or you’ve been on TV, you should be punished for having committed something as serious as that is it. It is extremely serious.”
Ms Badenoch also slammed the figures in the “media establishment” who defended Edwards after The Sun published its original allegations.
She told Political Editor Harry Cole: “The glee with which many of them went out to defend him, I think, given what he has been convicted of, shows that there is an attitude that there are some people who couldn’t possibly have done something wrong.”
Claims of two-tier policing have grown following prison sentences for people who helped whip up the summer riots on social media.
Ms Badenoch said a period in opposition would give the Tories time to develop fixes to the “broken” system.
She warned: “People need to see justice being done. The perception matters as much as the reality.”
She is currently battling to replace Rishi Sunak and emerged in second place in the recent round of MP voting.
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick is in the lead, with James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat jockeying to make it into the final two who go before the party members.
