A SUPERMARKET worker who arranged to meet a 13-year-old girl at a trampoline park after grooming her online has been jailed for two years and four months.

Robert Jones was caught after the girl’s eagle-eyed mum spotted the youngster’s suggestive communication with the 34-year-old on Facebook.

Then while he was on bail having been arrested he tried to arrange to meet up with, and take the virginity of, another 13-year-old who in reality was an undercover cop.

And Jones was also found to have more than 1,000 images of child rape stored on his laptop which he had searched for online.

Chris Smyth, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court it was a complete coincidence that the two grooming offences had been uncovered so close together.

He said in April last year Jones started to contact the child, who is a friend of a friend, on the social media site where her profile clearly showed her age.

Over a period of eight days there were 1,320 communications between them, making an average of 165 a day, many sent in the middle of the night.

“The contents of the messages is largely by the way of innuendo: he makes reference to bouncing with her which comes up when she talks about going trampolining,” said Mr Smyth.

But in others he told her he wanted to have sex with her and then discussed meeting up at the Free Dog trampoline park on a Thursday, but she had to go to school.

After the girl’s mum checked her Facebook account and found the messages she blocked him and also confronted him when she saw him at work in Asda.

The matter was reported to the police and when his computer was seized he was found to have almost 2,000 indecent pictures and movies of children.

About half were of youngsters being raped and almost all featured girls aged between about seven years old to young teens.

While he was on bail in September and October he was back in a chat room.

He was communicating with a girl called Amy, who he thought was 13, but in reality she was an undercover police officer from another area.

In the messages exchanged between them he talked of booking a hotel room so he could take her virginity.

Jones, of Leighton Avenue, pleaded guilty to meeting a child after grooming, attempting to do the same and making indecent images of children.

Nick Clough, defending, said his client had autistic spectrum disorder and 'probably has a mental age under his biological age'.

He said that there were no actual meetings with the girls and said that his client could be better treated in society rather than in prison.

Jailing him Judge Robert Pawson said: "It is wholly irrelevant to me that all of the communication appears to be willing.

"That is the whole point of the law, it is to protect impressionable young people from predatory people like you."

As well as jailing him he also imposed a sexual harm prevention order and told him he must register as a sex offender for 10 years.