A convicted paedophile could be facing a longer prison sentence if Court of Appeal judges side with prosecutors who claim his current sentence is "manifestly inadequate".

Melvin Martin was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison last November for sexually exploiting girls as young as 11-years-old.

The 25-year-old, of Sound View Lane, Sandys, pleaded guilty to three counts of sexually exploiting a minor, one count of unlawful carnal knowledge, three counts of accessing child pornography and four counts of making child pornography.

He was the first person to be jailed since new legislation regarding accessing and making child pornography came in to force last May.

Yesterday in the Court of Appeal, Director of Public Prosecutions Rory Field launched an appeal to lengthen Martin's sentence. He suggested an appropriate sentence would be one of nine to 12 years.

"We now come to the issue of whether the sentences are manifestly inadequate. The Crown is aware that this is a fairly new and developing area of criminality.

"It's our submission that the period of imprisonment is much too low. Particularly considering the age of the girls and the fact that there were five girls."

Mr. Field continued: "One of the challenges in this area of criminality is that access to the Internet allows images to be very easily transferred where previously there was some risk of transfer.

"The Internet allows paedophiles to meet online and encourage each other, support each other and basically allows the growth of potentially deviant practices and the Crown has significant concern that the development of this technology increases the risk of vulnerable victims.

"There's a particular need for a clear message to be sent out through the sentencing practices that will reflect the feelings society has on these kind of offences particularly the way they may affect the most vulnerable victims in society, that being young people."

At the original trial, Supreme Court heard from Crown counsel Cindy Clarke that Police executed a search warrant at Martin's home, seizing a laptop and a hard drive with a number of pornographic images of girls under 16 with file names such as "fun time".

Two days later, Police arrested him and seized a number of cameras from his home. Martin refused to comment on the videos but five young girls were able to identify themselves.

One of the girls, who was 12 years old at the time, admitted taking pornographic pictures of herself and sending them to an unknown man. Another girl, who was 11 years old, said she had taken the pictures herself and sent them to a friend, but she didn't know how Martin gained access to them.

Videos were also found of three girls, aged 11, 12 and 15, engaging in sexual acts with the defendant.

Yesterday Martin's lawyer Shade Subair suggested a sentence of three to five years was appropriate and said her client has expressed remorse.

"I am submitting that it's not inadequate. I am not making the submission that it's manifestly excessive, what I am saying is that it's not manifestly inadequate."

She continued: "They are very serious offences and they are heinous. It would be remiss of me not to bring to the court's attention that these are not offences where the complainants were forced or threatened or where any substance was used. The offences by Mr. Martin are on the lower end."

President of the Court of Appeal Edward Zacca, Sir Austin Ward and Sir Robin Auld will deliver their decision today.