A MAN who was given a chance after being caught by paedophile hunters as he tried to meet a child for sex was back at it again within months.

Jason Watts was spared jail last June after travelling to Newport in South Wales in the hope of having sex with a 15-year-old girl he thought he had met online.

Despite being banned from contacting children or having internet devices without permission, the 26-year-old from Calne was back prowling online in December.

But the 14-year-old girl he thought he was talking to on social media was in fact a law enforcement officer from US Homeland Security, Swindon Crown Court heard.

Watts pleaded guilty to attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, breaching a sexual harm prevention order, not complying with his sex offender registration and breaching a community order.

After hearing he poses a serious risk to children from future offending, a judge jailed him for three years and three months with a two-year nine month extended licence.

As he found he presented a significant risk of serious harm he will have to serve two-thirds of the time inside before he can apply for parole.

Mark Ashley, prosecuting, said Watts was put on a community order last summer with a sexual harm prevention order restricting his liberty.

That meant he was not allowed to have contact with girls under 16 or have any internet-enabled devices without the say-so of the police.

At the end of last year he was using Kik Messenger to contact a profile he thought was a 14-year-old girl, but in reality it was a decoy put up US police.

Mr Ashley said it followed a similar pattern to his previous offending where he engaged in sexualised chat with the ‘child’.

Mr Ashley said he also failed to comply with the conditions of his sex offender registration by moving from Calne to Bristol without informing the authorities.

Referring to the pre-sentence report he said “It is considered by the author he does present a significant risk to children. The probability is he will try to contact real children.”

Guy Wyatt, defending, said his client operated at a low intellectual level and had special educational needs as a child.

He said “The defendant has a congenital brain defect which effectively means that the two hemispheres of his brain don’t communicate properly or even at all.

“He leads a life of social isolation because of his intellectual capabilities. That leads to him looking for a lot of contact online.”

He pointed out that in both sets of offending he had been communicating with decoys so no real children were ever actually put to harm.

Jailing him, Judge Robert Pawson said “It is a very serious breach in no small part because of the striking similarities to the offences of January and February 2018.

“The risk, albeit that the offences you have been convicted of were attempts, is of serious harm to female children under the age of 16.”

He also imposed a sexual harm prevention order for 12 years and told Watts he must register as a sex offender for life