A FORMER chairman of Bury's UK Independence Party has been jailed for grooming children and possessing nearly 200,000 indecent images of children.

Peter Entwistle spoke to children on MSN Messenger and other social network sites in a sexualised manner, asking them to commit sexual acts for his own satisfaction, Bolton Crown Court heard today.

The 52-year-old named himself the 'Naughty Doctor', using an explicit picture of two women as his profile picture, and spoke to a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy, who he believed was a girl.

In addition, when police officers raided his house in January 25 last year, they found thousands of indecent images of children stored on a number of computers, USB sticks and some which had been printed out.

Entwistle was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to 21 counts at an earlier hearing, including possessing and distributing indecent images of children as well as inciting and the attempted inciting of children to commit sexual acts.

He will be placed on the sexual offenders register for life, and would be subject to a sexual offences prevention order.

The court was told that Entwistle, of Broad Oak Lane, Bury, had one previous conviction of indecently exposing himself to a woman in the 1980s, but had otherwise had a clean record.

Iain Simkin, defending Entwistle, read out a letter to the court from Alistair Burt, who was the MP for Bury North from 1983 to 1997, which referenced his good character .

Judge Elliot Knopf added: "You are now 52-years-old, and you have, until these matters, led an exemplary life, which is attributed to by various letters I have received from people ranging from family, colleagues, the rector of churches and an MP.”

The court was also told that Entwistle was seeking treatment from a psychiatrist for depression.

He was a founder member of Bury UKIP in March 2011, and resigned as party chairman in January 2013.