POLICE should be given more powers to prevent paedophiles like Davy Nicholls reoffending, Essex’s elected crime chief has said.

Nick Alston, Essex's Police and Crime Commissioner, said officers in the force did “excellent work", but were being held back by the law.

He spoke out after Davy Nicholls, 52, from Westcliff, was jailed for 15 years for a string of child sex offences, including abusing a girl aged under 13.

He had previously served part of a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence, beginning in 2009, after sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl over a period of six months.

Mr Alston said: “The offences committed by Nicholls are distressing and disturbing, all the more so because his previous convictions included sexual assault against another child.

“When this case was first brought to my attention, Deputy PCC Lindsay Whitehouse examined the details with officers in the public protection unit.

“It is clear that while there was much excellent work from the Essex Police specialist officers, there were statutory and practical limits to their powers to examine all computers that a registered sex offender might have access to.

“It is essential, when a serious offender is released into the community on licence, that police officers have the necessary powers to monitor their behaviour and activity.

“I would like to see those powers widened to enable the police to have access to any computer used by such offenders.”

Nicholls was caught for his latest crime when a customer at his shop in London Road, Westcliff, noticed an indecent image on his computer.

It is not clear if police or probation services would have had access to this as part of their checks on him.

Southend district commander Ch Insp Simon Anslow said he had no reason to believe the police had failed in their responsibility to monitor Nicholls, adding the force acted quickly when a customer at his shop in London Road, Westcliff, noticed the image.

He said: “Even our most intrusive monitoring, which would be visiting at least onceamonth, would still fall short of permanent surveillance of what someone is doing all the time.

“I have no reason to doubt we were delivering our supervision to a nationally accepted level and I would say it is to our credit that, as soon as concerns were raised, we acted decisively to take a dangerous man off the streets for 15 years.”

Nicholls, of Manor Road, Westcliff, was jailed for 15 years onWednesday and will serve at least ten years before being considered for release on licence after he admitted three counts of sexual activity with a child under 13, one count of a breach of his sexual offences prevention order, one count of taking indecent images of a child and eight further offences of making and possessing indecent images of children.

Investigating officer Det Con Gill Partridge said Nicholls “preyed” on his victim for more than two years.

Police do not have the power to search computers that may not be owned by a paedophile. This includes computers in internet cafes or machines at work.