A PEMBROKESHIRE man in his 60s sent messages to what he believed to be four different young girls, but they turned out to be three different paedophile hunters and a police officer working undercover, Swansea Crown Court has heard.

Robert Daye asked the youngsters for photographs of them in their school uniforms, talked about performing sex acts on them, and told one of them he wanted to put her over his knee and spank her.

Helen Randall, prosecuting, told the court that in August last year Daye started communicating what appeared to be an online profile belonging to a 13-year-old girl.

Over the following fortnight, the defendant sent a series of messages during which he sent the girl a picture of his erect penis and asked if she wanted to play with it, said he wanted to have sex with her, and told her he wanted to put her over his knee and spank her.

The prosecutor said the profile Daye was communicating with was being operated by a police officer. As a result of the messages, the defendant was arrested on September 4 and answered “no comment” to all questions asked before being released on bail.

The court heard Daye resumed his online activities in the summer of this year when he sent messages to what he thought were three 13-year-old girls – these accounts were being run by members of groups set up to target sex offenders. During the conversations with these profiles, the defendant talked about the girls’ breasts, described the kinds of sex acts he wanted to perform on them, and again asked for photographs of the children in school uniforms.

On July 4 members of one of the paedophile hunter groups arranged to meet Daye – after confronting him at the rendezvous, they called the police. Read about a man who burnt girlfriend with cigarette, stamped on her face and broke her jaw here.

Robert Daye, aged 63, of Cold Blow, Narberth, had previously pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted sexual communication with a child when he appeared in the dock for sentencing. He has one previous conviction from 1986 for an unrelated offence.

Dan Griffiths, for Daye, said it was accepted there was a degree of persistence to the defendant’s offending which had continued after his arrest and release on bail, and that his client had “demonstrated an unhealthy interest in young girls”. He said it was clear from the pre-sentence report into Daye that the digger driver was a “somewhat isolated man” who had enjoyed “few emotionally intimate relationships, and whose life had been characterised by prolonged periods of loneliness”. The advocate invited the court to find there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation in his client’s case.

Judge Geraint Walters told Daye he had had the “gall” to continue offending even while under investigation by the police. He said though there seemed to be differences within the pre-sentence report as to the level of risk the defendant posed, he was prepared to follow its recommendations. With a discount for his guilty pleas, Daye was sentenced to 15 months in prison suspended for two years, and he was ordered to complete a rehabilitation course and Maps for Change sex offender’s programme. He will be a registered sex offender for the next years 10 years and will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order for the same length of time.