A 57-YEAR-OLD man was jailed on Thursday for the internet sexual abuse of a vulnerable teenage boy 250 miles away, one video session lasting six and a half hours.

Richard Gethin Williams, of Llain y Maen, Blaenau Ffestiniog, was sent to prison for two and a half years and told by Judge Huw Rees that children needed to be protected "from people like you who are there to take advantage of them for their own perverted sexual needs."

Indefinite sex offenders' and sexual harm orders were made.

The defendant pleaded guilty to causing or inciting the lad to engage in sexual activity, four charges of making indecent images of children, and one of possessing extreme porn - an adult having sex with a dog.

Prosecuting at Caernarfon crown court James Coutts said the offences happened in January 2017. Police in North Wales had been contacted by a force in the south of England after staff at a residential school had been concerned that a pupil had been in Internet contact with Williams.

When his home was searched incriminating computer images were found, including screen shots and intimate photographs of the lad.

Williams, with no previous convictions, was said by his barrister Simon Rogers to have worked in the same job for 37 years but was "naive and vulnerable in his own way."

Mr Rogers stressed: "There was no direct contact between them in the sense of sexual activity where the two are present together."

He added: "When one reads the messages there's a feeling perhaps of a genuine affection by the defendant towards the complainant."

The judge told Williams that at times there had been very lengthy calls.

"You were seeking out this boy for your perverted sexual needs."