Former BBC presenter Ben Thomas pleads guilty to child sex offences

metro.co.uk:

London, Shropshire and Romania. Thomas had worked as a reporter on the Welsh-language programme Ffeil on BBC Wales, aimed at young people, as well as on Wales Today.He had left the BBC in 2005 to be a preacher in the streets of London before returning to Wales in 2008 and becoming pastor of the Criccieth Family Church in Gwynedd, a post which he left in 2019.

The church said in a statement: ‘We are now devastated by the revelation of such sin and grieve over the pain caused to the innocent victims, the betrayal and deception.‘Foremost in our prayers now are the victims and their families.’The statement added that his arrest had come as a ‘complete shock’ and safeguarding checks had been ‘satisfactorily completed’.