A SWINDON man was jailed for four-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to a number of sex offences.

Mark James Chester, 35, of Buckland Close, pleaded guilty to three counts of inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity, two counts of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child and one count of causing a child under 13 to watch an image of sexual activity, on August 23.

The Burger King employee was sentenced at Swindon Crown Court by Recorder Michael Vere-Hodge QC yesterday.

Chester struck up a conversation with an 11-year-old boy from Ulster towards the end of 2012 via an online video game, played over an internet connection through his Xbox games console.

Chester had attached a camera to the connection, and whilst he could not see the boy, the boy could see him during their exchanges.

It was with this camera that Chester exposed himself to the child, who has learning difficulties. After several exchanges the boy raised the issue with his mother, who filmed the next available camera call with Chester.

In sentencing, Recorder Vere-Hodge said: “This boy was left in considerable distress by the way in which you treated him over the internet.

“You knew what you were doing and you knew what you were inciting this boy to do and it was for your own sexual gratification.

“I can’t ignore what you were physically inciting him to do. If it had taken place it would’ve been charged as rape.

“In order to encourage him in sexual activity you showed him two pornographic videos, perhaps to excite him as part of this campaign that you were carrying out over the internet. At some time you might meet him and put these acts into physical reality, which makes this a very serious case.”

As a part of his sentence, Chester was told to serve seven days in prison concurrently as a result of breaching a conditional discharge he received in 2012.

On that occasion, Chester had been convicted of harassing a 12-year-old girl he met on Facebook via text message and to whom he had offered to send nude photos of himself and urged to do the same.

Chester was also put on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely and handed a sexual offences prevention order, which prevents him from having any unsupervised contact with children under the age of 16 indefinitely.

In mitigation and referring to a psychiatric report on Chester, Richard Williams said: “Doctor Claxton has calculated the defendant has learning difficulties and diagnosed this as mild mental retardation.

“In her view he has a low IQ and whilst he can function on a day-to-day basis, his emotional state is of a very immature young man.”