A PAEDOPHILE who attempted to meet a young girl for sexual activity was caught by police, and has now been jailed.

A series of sickening messages led to Oliver Smith arranging to meet the girl, who he thought was 10, at Webbs of Wychbold.

Giles Nelson, prosecuting, told Worcester Crown Court how the 53-year-old entered into chats on social media platforms with an officer posing as the mother of the child.

Messages were read out to the court describing the sexual acts Smith wanted to do to the child. The decoy mother told him to come prepared, with Smith replying he had not expected it to go that far and to have sex with the child on the first meeting.

A meeting was arranged on March 19, and when Smith stepped off the bus outside the garden centre police arrested him.

“In custody, he was found to have a condom in his shirt,” Me Nelson said.

“He gave a no comment interview.”

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Mr Nelson added an aggravating feature was Smith’s previous offending when, in 2006, he was convicted of having more than 1,000 indecent images of children, and distributed them in a large volume.

Richard Hall, defending, said Smith, who appeared via videolink from HMP Hewell, suffered from underlying health conditions, including heart disease and depression, and with the Covid-19 crisis had been spending 23-and-a-half hours in the cells. Mr Hall said Smith and his wife were now just friends but she was sticking with him, so described this as a “positive factor” as he knew she will be waiting for him on release.

Sentencing him Judge James Burbridge said: “You have a past conviction, I have to deal with you as a person with entrenched paedophile faults and protect children.”

Smith, of Woodman’s Rise, Droitwich, was jailed for five years three months for attempting to cause or incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity. For the charge of arranging or facilitating commission of a child sex offence he received four years to run concurrently. He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order, which will run indefinitely. The case was heard last Friday.