A convicted paedophile had his sentence increased to 14 years after Court of Appeal judges decided the original sentence was too low.

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.

The Department of Public Prosecution launched an appeal on Monday saying the original sentence was too short and yesterday the Appeal judges increased it to 14 years.

President of the Court of Appeal Edward Zacca said: "In this matter the court has arrived at a decision. The decision of the court is as follows. The application for leave to appeal is granted."

For the charges of sexual exploitation, the sentence was changed to nine years on each count to run concurrent. On the charges of making child pornography, Mr. Zacca said the sentence was to be vacated and a sentence of three years was to be substituted on each count, concurrent to each other but consecutive to the counts of sexual exploitation.

For accessing child pornography, the sentence of one year was affirmed and the sentence was to run concurrent. On the charge of unlawful carnal knowledge, the sentence of two years remained but was changed to consecutive.

Mr. Zacca said: "The reasons are to be put into writing at a later date."

Martin was originally sentenced to seven years imprisonment for the sexual exploitation of a minor, along with two years imprisonment for unlawful carnal knowledge and one year for accessing child pornography, all to run concurrently. He was also sentenced to 18 months for making child pornography.

At the original hearing, the Supreme Court heard 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 the age of 16 with file names such as "fun time".

Police seized a number of cameras from his home and the five young girls were able to identify themselves on the footage.

Both the 11-year-old and 12-year-old girls admitted taking the pictures of themselves but didn't know how Martin got them. Videos were also found of three girls, aged 11, 12 and 15, engaging in sexual acts with the defendant.