A Merlins Bridge man trapped by paedophile hunters has been jailed today (Friday) for 15 months.

Shaun Alan Smith, aged 53, had admitted attempting to entice an underage girl to engage in sexual activity.

Smith, of Glen View, had contacted what appeared to be a teenage girl on Facebook.

In fact, said Helen Randall, it was a man who used his 10-year-old daughter's profile as his.

He told Smith "she" was 14 and Smith sent a series of worrying messages.

The man passed Smith onto the "Welsh Warriors," who attempt to trap paedophiles looking for children to abuse.

Smith sent the "girl" messages offering to take her virginity and asking if she was wearing knickers. At one stage he told her: "You are the type of girl who could get men into trouble."

There were then conversations about meeting at a McDonald's and Smith was filmed approaching the restaurant.

After his arrest Smith, a father of four, told police he had not been interested in sex and had asked her about her knickers "to make sure she was properly dressed."

His barrister, Jim Davis, said it appeared Smith had been dealing with the Welsh Warriors from the start and never with a real girl.

He said Smith had been in jail since his arrest nine weeks ago and after his release "would not be going home to a log fire and a Christmas dinner but a hostel of some kind."

Judge Geraint Walters told Smith, "There were several weeks of conversations and you used graphic terms of sexual activity.

"It defies belief that a father of four children could behave in this way to someone else's child."

He also told Smith it was "nonsensical" for him to say he was not getting sexual pleasure from his activities.

He also warned Smith that he was in self denial and not ready to undertake a sex offenders programme.

Smith was ordered to register with the police as a sex offender for the next 10 years.