A convicted sex offender was back before the court for the second time in a year.

Daniel Thomas was given nine months by Swindon judge Peter Crabtree last July for grooming what he thought was a 13-year-old girl online. It turned out to be an undercover police officer fishing for paedophiles in teen chatrooms.

When the now 29-year-old was arrested for that offence in June 2019 a number of devices were seized.

In the year since his arrest the phone and computer were analysed by forensics experts. They found a number of indecent images of children and messages with what appeared to be a child where Thomas encouraged her to touch herself.

Appearing before Swindon Crown Court on Friday morning, Thomas, of Cheyney Walk, Trowbridge, pleaded guilty to attempting to incite a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity, distribution of 10 indecent images, making five indecent photographs of children in category B and nine in category C and possession of nine extreme pornographic images showing people having sex with animals.

Prosecutor Hannah Squire said it was not known if the man had been chatting online to a real child or a decoy account operated by a police officer or vigilante group.

Judge Peter Crabtree ordered an update from the probation service and adjourned Thomas’ case for sentence on September 18.

In 2016, Thomas was given a suspended sentence for downloading illegal images of children. A sexual harm prevention order also banned him from having internet-enabled devices without the knowledge of police.

In June 2019, a police officer was posing as a 13-year-old girl in a teen chatroom when a message appeared from “Dave Thomas”.

After being told “her” age the defendant claimed to be 18 and as the conversation developed it became more sexualised.

He suggested they continue talking via the Kik app where he continued asking about sex and sent her a picture of his privates.

Thomas asked her to send him images of herself and spoke about how he would like to meet her and how he would kiss her if they did.

When he was arrested on June 20, detectives discovered he had a computer and five mobile phones – not the one mobile phone he had declared to them.