A FORMER police trainee has admitted asking a nine-year-old girl to send him naked images of herself and sending sexual messages to five other children.

Jason Hicks, aged 31, of Canons Close, Bishopsteignton, was a student officer with the Devon and Cornwall police at the time he committed some of the offences of online or attempted online contact with underage girls.

He left the force as soon as the allegations came to light earlier this year after police seized and examined his Toshiba laptop, which also contained 1,228 indecent images of children.

The most serious charge which he admitted involved him encouraging a real nine-year-old child to send him naked photographs.

All the other offences of inciting girls to engage in sexual activity or sexual communications were attempts rather than full offences, which means the children involved may have been decoy profiles created by police or paedophile hunting groups.

Hicks admitted inciting sexual activity with a child and sexual communications with the same nine-year-old girl when he appeared at Exeter Crown Court.

These offences were committed in March and April 2021.

He admitted four counts of attempting to incite a child to sexual activity and four of attempted sexual communication with a child.

These related to girls aged 11 to 13 and were committed in December 2021 and January 2022.

Hicks also admitted three counts of making indecent images of children between 2012 and January 20 this year.

These involved downloading 121 still and six moving images in the most serious category A, which depict children involved in penetrative sexual activity.

He also had 213 still and 47 moving images in category B, which shows other forms of sexual activity and 819 still and 22 moving images in category C, which showed children naked or in sexual poses.

Judge Anna Richardson ordered the probation service to prepare a pre-sentence report and bailed Hicks to return for sentence on January 27, 2023.

Miss Mary Aspinall-Miles, defending, said a psychologist’s report will be obtained in time for that hearing.

In a press statement released when Hicks first appeared before Plymouth magistrates last month, a spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said: ‘Hicks was in training as a student police officer at the time of the alleged offences. He is no longer an employee of Devon and Cornwall Police.’