A PAEDOPHILE caught with child abuse images has been spared jail for a second time.

Matthew Jackson, 21, was arrested after his sex offender manager and a police officer made an unannounced visit to his home in the Abergavenny area.

He confessed to them he had watched some “teen porn” and gave them his mobile phone which had six indecent images of children on it.

They were all pictures and one of those showed a girl aged between eight and 10 being “orally penetrated” by a man, prosecutor Christopher Evans said.

Jackson had hidden these images in an app with a password that appeared to be a calculator and left no internet history record.

The defendant, of Kennelwood, Gilwern pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent photographs of children and three counts of being in breach of a sexual harm prevention order on July 25, 2023.

These offences put him in breach of a 36-month community order imposed in April 2022 for distributing an indecent image of a child and three counts of possession of an indecent image of a child.

Julia Cox representing Jackson said her client had been due to go on a Horizon sex offender programme as part of that sentence.

That had not happened but was not the fault of the defendant.

She asked that his sentence be suspended so that he could receive help and continue his rehabilitation.

Jackson was described at Cardiff Crown Court as a “bright young man with potential”.

Judge Paul Hopkins KC told him: “There was an element of sophistication in regard to concealing the images in this case.

“There was also the disobedience of a court order.”

But his 10-month prison sentence was suspended because there was the “prospect of rehabilitation”.

Jackson will have to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work, pay £250 costs and a £187 surcharge.

The defendant will have to register as a sex offender for the next 10 years.

The community order will continue to allow him to go on the Horizon sex offender programme.