A SELF-STYLED "paedophile hunter", who has made it his mission to root out child abusers, caught a man arranging to meet up with a 14-year-old girl in Blackburn.

At Bolton Crown Court married father-of-two Stephen Thomson was placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years, sentenced to a three-year community order and told he must participate in a sex offenders treatment programme.

Thomson, aged 57, was the subject of a sting by Stinson Hunter, a freelance journalist and researcher who featured in The Paedophile Hunter, a television documentary which won a BAFTA award earlier this month.

Speaking after the case, Mr Hunter said: “When I met Stephen in Farnworth to film him, he didn’t think he had done anything wrong. He had arranged to meet a 14-year-old child but then decided against it. He was trying to deflect the blame to me, saying I had entrapped him. He was not a pleasant man and didn’t seem to care.

“At least he is on the register so that will stop him from being around children in Bolton.

“Obviously the convictions like Stephen Thomson are a good thing, but I don’t do it to blow my own trumpet, saying, ‘look what I’ve done’. It’s all about getting people thinking, which I hope to some degree I have achieved.”

In court Joanna Rodikis, prosecuting, told how, on August 19 last year, Thomson entered an adult chat room on the internet and came in contact with someone calling themselves Kayleigh.

In reality Kayleigh was Hunter, posing as a 14-year-old schoolgirl.

The court heard that over three weeks Thomson had regular contact with Kayleigh, initially over the internet and then by using Whatsapp on mobile phones.

Thomson engaged in sexual talk with the “girl”, requested to see her breasts and sent her a photograph of a penis.

But when they arranged to meet in a Blackburn park, Thomson did not turn up, telling Kayleigh in a text message: “Please forgive a stupid old man and find someone of your own age.”

Hunter later confronted Thomson in the street, videoing their conversation, passing his evidence to police and posting it on his Facebook page.

Thomson, of Lower Rawson Street, Farnworth, pleaded guilty to attempting to cause a child to look at a sexual image and attempting to engage in sexual activity with a child.

Thomas Fitzpatrick, defending, told the court: “Although this defendant has been the recipient, as it were, of a sting, he holds no grudge against Mr Hunter and, in some respects, applauds his motives.”

However, he added that as a result of the publicity both Thomson and his wife, who worked with children, have lost their jobs and their teenage daughters have been subject to abuse from internet trolls.

“He is a man who has always worked hard and provided for his family and led an industrious and blameless life who now finds himself in the invidious position of being labelled a sex offender,” said Mr Fitzpatrick.

He added that Thomson had “immersed himself in a fantasy” which was at an embryonic stage and only the defendant knows whether he would have carried on with the offending if Kayleigh had been a real girl.

“In the final text he came to his senses,” said Mr Fitzpatrick.

Sentencing Thomson, Recorder Karen Brody told him: “These are serious offences because children who use the internet are increasingly prey to men and women who can groom them. It can cause immense damage.”-