A SICK pervert who tried to arrange to have sex with a seven-year-old girl and her mother has been jailed for three years.

Dave Smith contacted a woman on a social media chatroom before sending her a number of sexually explicit messages via an encrypted messaging service.

What the 57-year-old deviant didn’t realise was that he was talking to an undercover police officer tasked with tracking online sex offenders.

Using the name ‘likes em you’, Smith repeatedly asked the woman what sexual experience her daughter had before outlining exactly what he wanted to do to her, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Jonathan Walker, prosecuting, said Smith told the woman that he was prepared to travel to meet up with her and have sex with her daughter.

In a number of grim messages sent to the police decoy Smith made no effort to disguise his true age, the court heard.

The Northern Echo: Dave SmithDave Smith

"He was going to travel with the intention of having penetrative sexual activity," he said.

"He asked for an image of the seven-year-old and was sent an image and the defendant promised to reciprocate but then decided against that."

Mr Walker said the defendant initially denied the offence when he was arrested but admitted destroying his mobile phone.

Smith, of Sandport Walk, Stockton, had a previous conviction for possession of indecent images of children and was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) in 2017.

He pleaded guilty to trying to facilitate the commission of a child sex offence and breaching his sexual harm prevention order between May 16 and 20 last year.

Mr Walker said Smith smashed up his mobile phone in a desperate attempt to hide is online activities.

Rebecca Smith, in mitigation, said Smith had struggled with alcoholism and post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the horrific events during the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

Ms Smith told the judge that the victim was fictitious meaning that he would not have been able to follow through with what he had planned and was not arrested at a 'meeting place'.

Recorder Tahir Khan QC jailed Smith for a total of three years.

He said: “You destroyed the mobile phone that you had, no doubt because you realised that if the phone was seized by the police there would be very strong evidence of you having committed a very serious sexual offence.”

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