A PAEDOPHILE arranged to meet a 12-year-old boy for sex at Cwmbran Boating Lake after contacting him on Kik.

John Chadwick went to the car park of the popular spot but the child didn’t turn up, Newport Crown Court heard.

The 41-year-old then called the mobile number he had been given to try and get hold of him.

But the schoolboy didn’t actually exist and Chadwick soon found out he had been set up by a police sting when he was arrested.

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The defendant had been messaging an undercover police officer all the time and not a boy from Pontypool as he thought.

Prosecutor Byron Broadstock said: “After his arrest, he told the police, ‘It was a stupid mistake. I don’t know what I was doing. I thought it was going to be an innocent meet.’”

The court heard however that Chadwick had been talking on Kik about meeting up to have oral sex.

The defendant, of Bedwas Road, Caerphilly, pleaded guilty to arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

He also admitted attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child.

The offences were committed between June 2 and June 11.

Hashim Salmman, representing Chadwick, said his client was a man of previous good character with no previous convictions recorded against him.

His barrister told the court how the defendant had lost his marriage and his job as a result of his offending.

Judge Daniel Williams told Chadwick: “On June 3 you were online and instigated a conversation with someone you believed to be a 12-year-old boy. You said you were 40.

“On June 10, you repeated your request to meet up.

“You sent a screenshot of the Cwmbran Boating Lake car park and you made calls when the time of the meeting had passed.”

He jailed the defendant for two years and eight months and ordered him to register as a sex offender for life.

Chadwick was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for life and banned from working with children and vulnerable adults.