A PAEDOPHILE who preyed on three schoolboys during a sickening six-year campaign of grooming and abuse was last night behind bars.

Paul Thomas was jailed for five years and told by a judge: "You have an entrenched and wholly inappropriate sexual interest in children."

Thomas, 22, was also put on the sex offenders' register for the rest of his life and banned from having unsupervised contact with under-16s.

Teesside Crown Court heard yesterday how the parents of his first victim did not go to the police because they wanted to protect the boy.

It was only after they heard about him being quizzed about abusing another youngster years later that they made a statement to detectives.

Thomas, of The Crescent, Thornaby, near Stockton, confessed to sexually assaulting the first child and forcing the second to do explicit things.

He denied any wrongdoing with the third victim, but was found guilty of two charges by a jury yesterday afternoon after a three-day trial.

Judge Peter Bowers told him: "I hope during this period in prison you will undergo the sex offender treatment programme to give an insight into the cause of your behaviour."

The court heard how Thomas persuaded one boy to take an indecent picture of his younger sister, and asked him to film himself raping her.

Peter Sabiston, mitigating, said the offences were never going to be committed, and described his text messages as "stupid and rash".

"He is still having difficulty coming to terms with why he did it," said Mr Sabiston. "He feels ashamed and troubled by what he has done."

Thomas pleaded guilty to five charges of sexual assault and four of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity at an earlier hearing.

The jury of seven men and four women convicted him of a further two counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.