A SEX offender has been jailed for encouraging a 13-year-old girl to take part in sexual activities.

Matthew Gareth Horrocks, 30, and the girl exchanged more than 2,000 text messages, most of them sexually explicit, and met her in a secluded place so he could carry out a sexual act with her, York Crown Court was told.

His crimes were uncovered when police found the messages and he was arrested.

Horrocks, of Viking Road, Acomb, pleaded guilty to inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and sexual activity with a child.

He was jailed for two years and four months. He was also banned from working with children, put on the sex offenders’ register for life and given a sexual offences prevention order.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told him: “It is quite clear you were playing out a fantasy world in which you were encouraging her to take part in all sorts of activities. Some of the activity involved degrading things.”

Horrocks had a “problem with his sexual life” and had made it clear to the girl that he wanted full sexual intercourse with her.

For Horrocks, Colin Byrne said he was immature and didn’t appreciate the impact of his actions on the girl. He lived his social life on the internet rather than in the real world.

Christopher Attwooll, for the prosecution, said the girl had advertised herself as 18 on an internet website. But soon after Horrocks contacted her, she revealed that she was really 13.