A CONVICTED sex offender downloaded hundreds of indecent images of children and messaged who he thought was a 13-year-old girl on Snapchat just weeks after being released from prison.

Under the terms of a sexual harm prevention order, Kris Maisey was barred from holding social media accounts under names other than his own, from deleting messages and internet history, and from having unsupervised communications with children.

He had previously been convicted of three offences of making indecent images of children in July 2021, and then jailed for the same three offences as well as two of breaching a sexual harm prevention order in December 2022 after he was found to have contacted underage girls.

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Maisey was back before Swansea Crown Court after he was found to have been messaging who he thought was a 13-year-old girl on Snapchat from an account under a false name.

Prosecutor Ian Wright said an officer had set up the decoy account as part of an East Midlands Police operation.

Maisey began messaging the decoy on December 4. He asked how old the ‘girl’ was, and when the officer said 13, Maisey replied ‘Yikes’.

“The defendant quickly turned the conversation sexual,” Mr Wright said.

Maisey told the decoy “All I can think about is how good it would feel to f*** you”, and also messaged about taking the ‘girl’s’ virginity.

He also asked for her to send pictures of her with her school jumper pulled up and of her in a bikini, as well as sending pictures of himself in his bedroom.

Maisey was arrested on December 20.

When his phone was analysed, officers found the chatlogs showed he had deleted some messages.

Maisey, 33, of Norton Road in Penygroes, initially denied the offences, claiming he had been set up. He told the court at a previous hearing that someone must have logged on to the Wi-Fi at his parents’ address and sent the messages and pictures – which he acknowledged were of him – from there.

Judge Paul Thomas KC described this as “obviously a ludicrous defence”.

Although the Snapchat account wasn’t signed in on the phone, Mr Wright said that the device’s dictionary had recorded the username had been entered eight times.

A total of 316 indecent images of children were also found on his phone. The first of these had been accessed on November 16 – just 22 days after Maisey had been released from prison, Mr Wright said.

Maisey later admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child, attempting to breach a sexual harm prevention order, two offences of breaching a sexual harm prevention order, and possessing indecent images of children.

“The best mitigation in this case is his guilty pleas,” defence counsel Hannah George said. “The defendant knows he is likely to be serving a long prison sentence.

“There’s very little I can say on the defendant’s behalf.

“This represents an escalation in the defendant’s behaviour.”

Ms George said Maisey wanted to engage with any available support to prevent any further offending.

“He does want to know the reason why he has these interests in order to break the cycle,” she said.

Sentencing Maisey, Judge Thomas said: “You are quite clearly determined to continue to try to contact underage girls for sexual communication, even after you received a prison sentence for doing just that.

“Within 22 days of being released from that sentence, you began again downloading images and shortly after that began talking to who you thought was a 13-year-old girl.”

He sentenced Maisey to a total of four years in prison. The defendant remains subject to his current 10-year sexual harm prevention order and was previously ordered to register indefinitely as a sex offender.