A SERIAL sex offender is back behind bars after he was caught in an online sting by paedophile hunters.

Greg Causton, 35, believed he was chatting to a 14-year-old schoolgirl called Zoe on an app called Meet24.

He asked her to send him sexually explicit photographs of herself and forwarded graphic pictures of himself to her.

The defendant then went on to ask ‘Zoe’ to meet up with him so he could have sex with her, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

MORE NEWS

But Causton, formerly of Newport, now of High Street, Llanhilleth, Abertillery, was falling into a trap laid for him by the paedophile hunting group.

Claire Pickthall, prosecuting, said: “The defendant called ‘Zoe’ beautiful and sexy and he asked her to send pictures when she had taken her clothing off.

“He said, ‘Mmm, take your top off”. He asked her to meet him.

“She told him she was scared of getting into trouble but he told her it would be their secret.

“He told her he loved her.”

Causton also said to the decoy he wanted to have sex with her.

Miss Pickthall told how the defendant had been jailed for two years in 2014 for sending sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl.

Causton’s latest offences were committed between July 2020 and 2021.

He pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child.

The defendant also admitted attempting to breach a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

James Evans, representing Causton, asked for the judge to give the defendant credit for his early guilty pleas.

The court heard the defendant was “on the edge of the autism spectrum”.

Mr Evans said the coronavirus pandemic had hit his client and he had been affected after how grandmother was taken into a care home.

Recorder IWL Jones told Causton: “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

He jailed him for 10 months and made him the subject of a SHPO until 2031.

The defendant was also ordered to pay a £156 surcharge.