A man from Chester has been jailed for over five years, after engaging in online child sex offences.

Nicholas Jones appeared at Chester Crown Court on Monday 29 June where he was sentenced to five years and three months in prison, with an extended licence period of five years.

On top of the custodial sentence, Jones, of Canal Side, Chester, was also ordered to sign on to the Sex Offender's Register indefinitely.

The sentencing comes after Jones pleaded guilty to:

• four counts of making an indecent photograph of a child;
• two counts of attempting to engage in sexual communications with a child;
• two counts of attempting to incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity;
• distributing an indecent photograph of a child;
• attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act;
• and the breach of a Sexual Harm Prevention Order

Jones also pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis.

Over the course of his hearing, Chester Crown Court was told that Jones had been handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order following a conviction in 2019.

Under the terms of this order, he was prohibited to have any unsupervised contact with anyone under 16, installing encryption software or deleting data and history on any of his devices.

On Tuesday 2 January 2026, Cheshire police were contacted by a person claiming that Jones had been engaging with a decoy account of a 12-year-old girl they had created.

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The reporting person went on to say Jones set up a social media account to talk to the 'child', had attempted to engage in sexual communication with them and sent several sexualised pictures and videos to them.

Officers swiftly attended Jones' address and promptly arrested him. Whilst inside the property, Jones pointed out to officers a quantity of cannabis as well as an unregistered mobile phone. He told officers that they would find "loads of pictures on his phone."

Upon reviewing the phone, Digital Forensics Officers found over 320 child sexual abuse images stored on the device.

Despite answering no comment to all questions put to him in interview, the 55-year-old was charged with the offences.

Police Constable David Howells, of the Sex Offender Management Unit, said: "Despite being handed a Sexual Harm Prevention Order following a previous conviction for similar offences, Nicholas Jones clearly had not learnt his lesson and, following the report made to us, we took immediate action against him.

"Jones knew his actions were exploitative and downright illegal so, when faced with our officers, he was left with no choice but to admit to them that he had a large quantity of these abhorrent images on an unregistered personal device.

"Our officers from the Sex Offender's Management Unit regularly conduct visits to offenders who, like Jones, pose a serious risk to the community and are subject to preventative orders to ensure they are complying with the conditions within them. When any breaches of these orders are found, swift and decisive action is taken in order to protect the most vulnerable in our society."