A SEX pest has pleaded guilty to taking more than 1,300 photos and more than 80 videos up women's skirts in Chester.

Gareth Hale, 36, of Pipers Row, Wolverhampton, committed the offences between January 2012 and August 2018, when he was arrested at a branch of Marks and Spencer, Chester Magistrates Court heard on Monday, January 27.

Prosecuting, Hannah Scott said Hale would use software to add the respective victims' faces to the recordings.

Some of the images and videos found on Hale's iPhones used to commit the crimes were sourced from the internet, but the majority were ones he had taken himself.

They were all date and time stamped and a number had GPS co-ordinates in their data.

On one iPhone, there were 752 images and 86 videos, while another had 605 images, all up women's skirts.

When interviewed by police, Hale accepted taking photos and videos up women's skirts, but seemed surprised by the number of images on his phones.

The court he was a man with no previous convictions.

The offences pre-dated the introduction of the specific criminal offence for upskirting, introduced in April 2019, with Hale pleading guilty to the charge of outraging public decency.

Richard Thomas, defending, said there was no suggestion any of the images or videos had been uploaded to the internet or shared publicly, and none of the victims had seemingly been aware of the offence, in that none had made a complaint to the police.

Hale had expressed remorse when interviewed by police and had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity.

The case had been hanging over him for "an extraordinarily long time" and it had "crushed him", Mr Thomas added, explaining Hale wished to know his fate and did not want a further delay if the case was sent to crown court for sentencing.

But, after retiring to consider, magistrates ruled the case was too serious to be sentenced within their court and the case will now be listed for sentence at Chester Crown Court next month.

Hale was released on unconditional bail.