A PAEDOPHILE with previous convictions for possessing indecent images of children has been jailed for four years.

George Jarvis, 35, of Pinehurst Road, had been banned from having internet devices after being spared jail earlier this year for downloading child abuse images.

However, he had a smartphone hidden in his loft and used the device to arrange to meet a 12-year-old girl after making lewd comments to her.

Jarvis has now accepted he is sexually attracted to children.

Rob Welling, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that Jarvis was given a suspended sentence on April 20. He was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order which said he must have safety software on any hardware which could connect to the internet.

But even at the time the order was made, Jarvis already had a Samsung Mini mobile phone hidden in the attic to give him ‘ready access so he could continue what he was doing’.

Mr Welling said Jarvis used the device to go online, where he had set up a number of profiles, often using a girl’s name.

At the end of May, Jarvis made contact with a girl and made suggestive comments to her. He then arranged to meet the youngster and, though she turned up, he did not meet her so there was no contact.

The court heard that, earlier that month, he was also contacting two girls’ Facebook profiles which were decoys set up by a paedophile hunter group.

Jarvis pleaded guilty to breaching a sexual harm prevention order and attempted sexual communication with a child.

As well as the suspended sentence imposed in April, he was put on a sex offender programme in 2010 for trying to take pictures of a child. He was also spared jail in 2004 after he stalked a teenage girl as she walked home at night in Gorse Hill and pinned her against her door and sexually assaulted her.

Five years earlier, he had been convicted of flashing.

Richard Williams, defending, said his client realised he was facing a jail term for offending so soon after being put on a suspended sentence.

Mr Williams said Jarvis had mild learning difficulties and an IQ in the 60s but had held down jobs in the past.

Jailing him, Judge Robert Pawson said: “This breach was flagrant, it was quite deliberate by you. You had that phone in order to make contact with children for sexual purposes.

“You accept you have a sexual interest in children.

“The sexual harm prevention order had only been in force for a number of weeks before you breached it.

“There is this background of continual sexual offending. You also have a long history of sexual offending spanning 18 years.

“This is not a minor breach, this is a serious breach of an order imposed to protect children.”

He imposed a new order which will last for life, and must continue to register as a sex offender for life.