A 71-year-old pensioner from Dawlish, Gary Chivers, has been sentenced to five and a half years in prison for attempting to engage in sexual communication with children online.

Chivers, who was already subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO), used chat platforms like OK Live to communicate with what he believed were young girls, as young as 10 years old.

Posing as a teenager, he would quickly turn conversations sexual, sending explicit images and making suggestive comments. He also attempted to solicit explicit videos from the supposed girls and even tried to call them, maintaining his false persona.

However, Chivers was actually communicating with a paedophile hunter group, who eventually confronted him and alerted the police.

During the investigation, officers found evidence of Chivers' activities on multiple devices. He admitted to multiple charges of attempted sexual communication with children and attempting to incite sexual activity with a child.

Judge David Evans at Exeter Crown Court described Chivers as a danger to children and emphasized the need for an extended sentence with licence conditions to ensure public safety.

Chivers' history includes a previous jail sentence in 2015 for similar offenses, including inciting children to sexual activity and distributing indecent images.

The parole board will determine when Chivers is suitable for release. He has been ordered to serve an extended licence period of 18 months following his prison sentence.