Nicholas Maguire used Kik and Snapchat mobile apps to make and send the sexualised messages and when he was arrested by police.
Lewis Kerr, prosecuting, said the defendant then refused to hand over the pin number but they were able to gain access and discovered more than a thousand child abuse images.
Teesside Crown Court heard how the defendant sent a video of himself performing a sex act and asked her sexually inappropriate questions about herself.
Maguire, of Wolsey Close, Newton Aycliffe, pleaded guilty to attempting to sexually communicate with a child in March and April 2020 and again between March and April 2022; and to trying to incite a teenage boy to engage in sexual activity.
The 55-year-old also admitted possessing 400 Category A videos and images, 427 Category B videos and images, and 439 Category C images.
David Carmichael, mitigating, said Maguire had been living an isolated life during Covid lockdowns and had never been in trouble with the police before.
Judge Timothy Stead said: “At 55, this your first appearance in this court and I sincerely hope it is the last one.
“You have already made some admissions, it’s very common for people in your position, it is an embarrassing position, to find it difficult and be slow to acknowledge what they have done.
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“It’s very important that you continue to do so. You are intelligent enough to know that you have not encountered any actual child in the course of this case, those who take horrible sexual photographs of children and make films of it cause immense harm.
“Many of those acts would not take place if people like yourself, who encourage it downloaded such images, it’s not true to say that you bear no responsibility whatsoever.”
Maguire was sentenced to 16 months in custody suspended and was ordered to attend 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days and perform 120 hours of unpaid work.
He was also subjected to a ten-year sexual harm prevention order and told to sign the sex offenders’ register for the same length of time.
