A PERVERTED Carlisle man snared by volunteer paedophile hunters as he tried to sexually groom a 14-year-old girl has been jailed.

Just months after he was prosecuted for downloading indecent images of children, Frederick Adam O’Brien, 49, had acquired a 'secret' mobile phone and used it to communicate with a person he mistakenly believed was a 14-year-old girl, Carlisle Crown Court heard.

He realised his mistake only after the vigilante group confronted him at a local hotel, making a citizens' arrest.

The group - the Fleetwood Enforcers - then handed him and a dossier of evidence to the police.

The defendant, of Glendale Rise, Morton, Carlisle, admitted three offences: attempting on November 13 to cause or incite a 14-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity; on September 17 attempting to sexually communicate with a child; and on May 29, in breach of a previously imposed sexual harm prevention order, failing to register with police his ownership of a mobile phone.

He was sentenced at Carlisle Crown Court.

Prosecutor Tim Evans described how matters came to a head for O'Brien when he went to what he thought was a meeting with the girl at a local hotel - only to be confronted by the volunteers.

"He tried to make off from the scene after being confronted," said Mr Evans. "Police attended at the scene and received from the Fleetwood Enforcers a file of evidence."

The prosecutor said the defendant - thinking he was talking to a 14-year-old girl - had very quickly started in his online conversation to quiz her about sexual matters. But it had been made clear from the outset that the person was identified as a child, said Mr Evans.

When he went to the hotel, he was clearly expecting to meet a 14-year-old girl.

At one point, online, O'Brien asked the girl if she needed a "sugar daddy."

In July last year, the defendant was given a two year jail term suspended for two years for indecent images offences.

In an earlier hearing, the prosecution suggested O'Brien posed a "real risk" to members of the public.

Jeff Smith, for O'Brien, said society would benefit more from him receiving treatment, not custody.

But Judge Nicholas Barker told O'Brien that his acquisition of a secret mobile phone had been "deliberate subversive act" in which he attempted to evade and avoid the restrictions placed on him by the sexual harm prevention order imposed last year.

"The purpose of [you] doing so was to enable you to engage in sexual misconduct such as you committed here," said the judge.

The judge noted how O'Brien's conversation with the decoy child had almost immediately become sexual.

It was plain, said the judge, that the work he had done with the Probation Service to address his sexual attraction to children came to nothing.

"You are a determined paedophile," concluded Judge Barker.

"It's as simple as that. You are restless in seeking out and engaging with children in a sexual way and that will not be tolerated by these courts.

"Any suggestion of anything other than immediate custody would fail to recognise the seriousness of this offending."

O'Brien was jailed for 28 months.

He was put on the Sex Offender Register for a decade.