A SEX offender has been jailed after falling for a trap set by a Hereford paedophile hunter posing online as a 14-year-old girl.

Samir Rignall, 46, was arrested when he arrived at Hereford railway station expecting to meet the girl for sex, Worcester Crown Court was told.

He was carrying a bag with a tent and a duvet and various sex toys, Paul Whitfield, prosecuting, told the court.

Self-proclaimed paedophile hunter David Poole set up the sting through his group H Division and posted details online.

The court heard that Rignall had been given a six-year jail sentence at Cardiff Crown Court in February, 2011, for abducting and having sex with a 15-year-old girl.

He was also given a sexual offences prevention order banning him from making any contact with young people on the internet.

But he was able to get onto a website for over 18s under the name of Phil and contacted the fake teenage girl, Mr Whitfield said.

She soon told him she was 14 but he continued to chat to her with the messages becoming more explicit until he suggested they meet up.

A second teenage girl was introduced to the trap as her friend and Rignall suggested she should also come along for a “threesome,” Mr Whitfield said.

But when he arrived at the station from Cardiff on March 4, he was met only by the paedophile hunter and arrested by police.

“His intention was plain,” Mr Whitfield said. “He intended to have sex with a child.”

Rignall, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to attempting to meet a girl under 16 following grooming, attempting to entice her to engage in penetrative sexual activity, breaching a sexual offences order and failing to notify the authorities that he was using the internet.

Lee Marklew, defending, said there had been no victim in the crime because the girl did not exist so no damage could have been caused to her or her family.

The profile picture used had been the picture of a youthful looking girl in her 20s, he said.

“The consequences are not as far reaching,” he added.

Rignall, he said, had been in the Army and Air Force and had not started to offend until he was 40.

He had not had any contact with his family for 25 years.

Judge Robert Juckes, QC, said Rignall had thought he was going to meet a girl to commit the sex offences he had described in their conversations.

“You had been set up,” he told Rignall. “The person who met you at the station was the person who had set the trap.

“You are in the grip of a sexual urge you cannot control,” he told Rignall. “You represent a risk of real harm to children.”

The judge said it was an “unusual” case because there was no actual child involved and the offences were charged only as attempts which must have an effect on the sentence.

Rignall was given a total jail sentence of three years and four months plus an extended licence period of three years.