AN election will be held next month to decide who will fill the seat left vacant following the resignation of disgraced Newport councillor Dean Jenkins.

Jenkins was jailed for 14 months on Friday after he admitted child pornography charges.

A council spokesman said a by-election will now be held on August 4 when voters in the Graig ward will be able to choose a new representative.

The Argus exclusively revealed that 44-year-old Jenkins was arrested as part of an FBI probe into child pornography in December last year. Police took computer equipment away from his home in Lower Machen.

He spoke to the Argus of his "anguish" and said he was confident he would clear his name describing what had happened as an "innocent mistake".

But while he was on bail and the inquiry continued, the unmarried call centre worker worker bought new equipment and downloaded more images.

When he appeared at Newport crown court last month he admitted 39 charges of possessing, making and distributing indecent images of young boys.

More than 5,000 active images were found in total - ranging in severity from level one to the most serious, level five - and another 2,000 were deleted.

He was jailed for 14 months but Judge David Morris ordered he should also be on extended supervision for 30 months when he leaves prison.

He will be on the sex offenders register for 10 years and was disqualified from working with children.

After the hearing computer crime investigator Gary Probert said Jenkins had first used his credit card to buy indecent photographs of children in 1999.

"While he was being investigated for the first series of offences he continued to download images from the Internet and distribute them on the Internet. They are still available to anyone because they do not degrade in any way."

Jenkins' former council colleague, Councillor Matthew Evans, the leader of the Conservative group, described it as a "sickening crime with countless victims" and said he was disappointed with the sentence.