A FORMER police student, caught in a sting by a man described as a paedophile hunter, was trying to meet up with a 14-year-old boy after exchanging sexual text messages.

Kristian Kirk, 25, engaged in a two-hour text conversation with a fictitious under-age boy, who turned out to be Stinson Hunter, Burnley Crown Court was told.

The former University of Central Lancashire policing student had initially met the ‘boy’ via the gay dating website Grindr and later swapped texts, asking the youngster for intimate pictures and outlining a fetish for ‘lads in white socks’.

Prosecutor Matthew Hooper said there were a number of references to the ‘boy’ being 14 during the conversation.

Kirk initially alerted police to the exchange after Mr Hunter published their conversation online, and he was subjected to threats.

The pair did not actually ever ‘meet’ but Kirk admitted to police that the text exchanges were genuine.

Kirk, formerly of Oswaldtwistle, had been forced to move out of Lancashire and regular police patrols had been established outside his mother’s home, after a far-right group began a hate campaign, following publicity surrounding the case, the court heard.

Defence counsel Daniel Prowse said his client, who had no previous convictions, accepted he had been prepared to meet the bogus 14-year-old but denied he would have had sex with him.

The texts between the pair also showed that it was Stinson Hunter, posing as the boy, who had made the first sexual comments, and had initially suggested meeting up, he told the court.

Mr Prowse added: “Had Stinson Hunter been an agent of the state then this case would have come perilously close to entrapment.”

Kirk admitted attempting to arrange or facilitate acts which would have led to the commission of sexual activity with a child and was given a three-year community order, including probation supervision and attendance on a sexual offenders’ treatment programme.

Judge Simon Newell said that when vigilantes like Stinson Hunter conducted such operations it may lead to ‘local violence, abuse threats and harassment’, such as in Kirk’s case.

“There has been an element of punishment in this case. The activities of Mr Hunter, and certainly the publication of such information, as far as I am concerned, is to be deplored,” he added.