A PERSISTENT online paedophile snared in a sting by a decoy posing as a 12-year-old girl has been jailed for 32 months.

Christopher Watts, 39, flouted a community order for attempting to communicate sexually with a child by repeatedly doing the same thing, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

Watts, of Range Lane, Halifax, pleaded guilty to making three attempts to communicate with under-age girls online and to twice breaching a 15-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Prosecutor Joe Culley said he committed offences between September and October, 2018, and again while under police investigation between December last year and March.

He was netted in 2018 by a woman working as a decoy for an online child protection group. She told him she was 12 but Watts messaged her for 11 days making vile suggestions, including saying he wanted her to have his baby.

He gave her his address when she said she wanted to send him a friendship bracelet.

Watts was confronted by members of the group who called the police.

In the second set of offences, he believed he was talking to two girls aged 14 when he engaged in sexualised online chat.

His barrister, Lydia Pearce, said he was lonely and alcohol had played a role in his offending. He suffered with anxiety, had a low IQ and would be vulnerable in prison.

Judge Andrew Hatton told Watts: “You were determined to communicate with young children for your own sexual gratification.”

He ordered that the Sexual Harm Prevention stay in force and said that Watts must sign on the sex offender register for life.