A REPEAT sex offender who tried to meet a child he had groomed online has been warned he is facing jail.

Mark Chester used Facebook Messenger and chat rooms to contact what he thought was a young girl, despite being banned from doing so.

He was arrested in the wake of a sting by paedophile hunters who went to his home following online contact with him where they pretended to be an underage girl.

Now the 40-year-old, who was made the subject of an indefinite sexual offences prevention order, has been remanded in custody so pre-sentence report can be prepared to assess whether he is categorised as a dangerous offender.

Should a judge find he presents a significant risk of serious harm through future offending he may have to serve two thirds of any sentence imposed.

Chester, of Shrivenham Road, appeared in the dock at Swindon Crown Court where he pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming and breaching a sexual offenders prevention order.

His defence barrister Anna Midgley asked for the case to be adjourned so a pre-sentence report can be carried out on her client.

And she said an assessment by a psychiatrist or psychologist had been carried out for the sentencing hearing relating to one of his previous convictions.

It showed he had a mental age of about 14, she said.

She hoped the report could be made available to the sentencing court.

Judge Robert Pawson said he would put the case off to Wednesday December 19 and asked the report to consider whether Chester was a dangerous offender.

He said: “Mr Chester you have pleaded guilty to potentially serious criminal offences but as your barrister Miss Midgley points out the sentencing court, whoever the judge is, will be assisted by a pre-sentence report.

“Miss Midgley tells me that you tell her that you saw a psychologist or psychiatrist before and that report will also be made available.

He warned Chester: “I am not prejudging your case but, on the face of it, it clearly passes what we call the custodial threshold, which means the starting point is likely to be a period in prison.

“The fact I am ordering a pre-sentence report it could still be custody, that is the most likely result. You will remain in custody until then.”

Chester was jailed for two years in May last year after he was caught using computers in the library to contact girls as young as 11 online on Instagram and WhatsApp using the names Mark James and James Smith.

At the time he was on early release from a four-year sentence for six offences contacting an 11-year-old lad via his XBox and encouraged him to engage in sex acts while he was on a web cam. The alarm was raised when the child's mother spotted a text on his phone.

That prison term was reduced from four and-a-half years by the Court of Appeal.

A year before that he was convicted of texting a 12-year-old girl and trying to get her to send nude photos.