A CONVICTED sex offender caught sending social media messages to two under-age girls has been warned he could be facing significant jail sentences in future.

Michael Guy, 60, has previously been placed under a sexual harm prevention order, after being jailed in 2013 for grooming three young girls.

Burnley Crown Court heard he had sent two messages to a 15-year-old and also attempted to contact a 10-year-old girl via Facebook.

Prosecutors say that neither of the girls responded to the communications.

But when police went to Guy’s home, they found a naked picture of a young girl, taken at a picnic, which he had accessed on his computer on no fewer than six occasions.

Guy, formerly of Spring Street, Rishton, but now of Newfield Drive, Nelson, pleaded guilty to breaching his prevention order by communicating with the girls and possession of the indecent images.

Iain Simkin, defending, said his client had already been given a six-month suspended prison sentence by magistrates, in February, for breaching the order.

But his electronic devices could not be analysed, in time for that hearing, so he now faced the present offences, the court heard.

Mr Simkin said the defendant had struggled to understand the limitations of the court order but was now fully aware of them, having been remanded in custody since the end of February.

Jailing him for six months, Judge Beverley Lunt said that if all the offences had been dealt with together she would have been minded to pass the same term.

The judge also told him: “You need to take this order very seriously, do you understand? Otherwise it’s you that will keep on ending up in the dock.

“There is no question that if you come back again, any judge will look at giving you three or four years’ custody, before giving you any credit for a guilty plea.”

Guy’s original offending, in the Hyndburn area, saw him make sexual comments to girls aged 12 to 14 and plying them with alcohol.

He was arrested and police found more than 300 indecent photos on his computer. A court heard he had convictions for unlawful sexual intercourse and indecent assault.