A FATHER-of-two prepared his lock up garage as a makeshift bedroom when he thought he was meeting a 13-year-old girl for sex.

Gordon Ward got two sleeping bags and arranged the space for the arrival of the child, only to find he was the subject of a paedophile hunter sting.

Now the married 41-year-old has been jailed for two years and three months after admitting a string of offences.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court how a Facebook profile was set up by the Justice4Children group in the name of Katie-Louise earlier this year.

Using a picture of a child sourced online, the court heard that the details clearly showed the girl was 13 years old.

Miss Hingston said after becoming friends on Facebook, Ward started grooming her by calling her ‘sweetie’ and telling her how good-looking she was.

Soon after he began making sexual references and, after asking her to send him pictures of herself naked, he sent her some of him performing a sex act on himself.

He asked her if there were ways of her getting out of school and told her to move on to an encrypted messaging system.

Miss Hingston said he then arranged to meet the girl and, when the paedophile hunters arrived at his garage on April 4, they found two sleeping bags in the garage.

“It was set up as if it were a bedroom,” Miss Hingston said, though he denied that was the case until accepting it when he spoke to a probation officer.

Ward, of Penhill Drive, admitted attempting to meet a child after sexual grooming, attempting to cause a child to engage in sexual activity and to watch sexual activity.

Richard Williams, defending, said that his client had found it difficult to face up to what he had done.

Following his arrest he said he needed hospital treatment as a result of the way he was forcibly detained by the hunters.

He said that he was having trouble in his marriage at the time and since his arrest he has not seen his two children.

After an incident in his past he said he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder as well as depression and had difficulties with his spine.

Jailing him, Judge Robert Pawson said: “What you did Mr Ward was communicate with a fictitious person, Katie-Louise, who you believed to be aged 13.

“There was an element of planning. Very soon after contacting her you switched to encrypted messaging. It is clear you were planning to a meet a 13-year-old girl and indulge in sexual activity. It is clear from the Facebook messaging that your plan was sexual intercourse.”

He also imposed a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years, the same period he must register as a sex offender.