A CAERPHILLY admitted a range of offences relating to sexual contact and images of children.

Jake Brooks, 26, of Jubilee Road, Elliotstown, admitted five charges at Cardiff Crown Court on August 3.

He was charged with one count of attempting to communicate with a child under 16 on October 19, 2021.

Prosecutor Nigel Fryer told the court how Brooks was in communication with what he believed to be a 13-year-old girl, but the girl was actually a decoy police officer.

He said that Brooks was using the name ‘Brooksy’ and displayed his age as 13. However, he told the ‘girl’ he was 18 and continued to communicate with her after she told him she was 13.

One of the messages according to Mr Fryer sent to the decoy encouraged her to send nude photographs and offered to ‘teach her stuff.’

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“He bragged that he had taught other young girls stuff.”

It was this contact that led to Gwent Police visiting the defendant’s home on November 24. He was cautioned and it was found on his phone and laptop that he had 95 indecent images and videos of children aged between six months and 13 years.

He was charged with three counts of possessing the indecent images, with one count for each of the category A, B and C media.

He also faced a charge of possessing extreme pornographic images involving an animal.

The prosecution said that there were messages from a number of sites including the Kik messaging app where Brooks asked for images of girls.

Jeff Jones, defending, said that the defendants mental health and ADHD was a factor and the defendant stopped messaging the decoy and didn’t reply when she tried to contact him further.

He also said that his client made a full identification of who he was on the sites so there was no malicious intent.

Judge His Honour DJ Hale recognised how during the period from his arrest in November 2021 through to the present period, there had been no signs of reoffending and Brooks had complied with his bail conditions.

He said: “In 2021, you were clearly interested in looking at images of children. You were chatting on foreign websites to people you perceived to be children and this one, as most are, was a police officer.

“This contact with this police officer was very brief. It was a very short conversation but with a girl you thought was 13.

“You have no business talking to a 13-year-old child.”

He told the defendant that he didn’t believe he was a ‘lost cause’ as it was his first offence aside from a caution in 2014 for an unrelated issue.

Brooks was given a three-year community order and was made to sign the sex offenders register for five years and was made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time. He also had to pay a victim surcharge to the court.