A "DANGEROUS" self-confessed paedophile, who did research on child murder and York schools within days of being released from jail has been given an eight-year extended prison sentence.

Phillip John Kirk, 22, also wrote to the Home Secretary asking for her to make sex with children legal, said Laura Addy, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

Despite being closely monitored by police and probation officers, in less than a month of freedom he downloaded more than 1,000 indecent images of young girls from the internet and got sex toys, including a homemade one with young children's clothes, researched youth clubs and looked on the internet for details about Girl Guides, Brownies and Rainbows, school and police uniforms and a UK police warrant template.

York Press:

In his letter to the Home Secretary Kirk, formerly of Walmgate, wrote: "I have been a paedophile since the age of 13 and openly a paedophile for the last three years."

Detective Inspector Shaun Page, of North Yorkshire Police, said: “Phillip Kirk is one of the most dangerous individuals I am aware of, and I welcome the sentence at court today that will keep children safe.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told Kirk: "Yours is an extremely disturbing case. I must address the danger you pose to the public in general and to children in general.

"It is clear you have a very unhealthy interest in children and despite all your recent experiences, nothing it seems deters you from offending.

"I am quite satisfied there is a strong public interest and I have a public duty to mark society's revulsion at your behaviour by a sentence which provides effective protection for the public for a long period of time."

York Press:

The judge described the letter to the Home Secretary as a "deluded and dangerous plea to decriminalise sex with children."

He passed an eight-year extended prison sentence of four years in jail and four years' probation supervision following release. If he reoffends at any time during the sentence, Kirk can be sent back to prison to serve the rest of it behind bars.

The judge also tightened existing controls on Kirk under a lifelong sexual offences prevention order that now bans him for ever going within 100 metres of any school, youth club or other place where young people gather, working or volunteering with organisations connected to children and having unsupervised contact with anyone under 16, and restricts his use of the internet to a single electronic item under police supervision. He will be on the sex offenders' register for life.

Kirk, most recently of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to 21 charges of downloading indecent images of children. Four charges of breaching an earlier sexual offences prevention order were ordered to lie on file, meaning they are not convictions but will appear on his police record.

His solicitor advocate David Camidge said he had made a "cry for help" to probation officers just before his arrest. He had had a troubled childhood and had been diagnosed as possibly having an "autistic spectrum disorder", the court was told. He was taking the maximum dosage of an anti-depressant drug and would need a "great deal of work" by the probation service to manage the risk he poses to the public.

Miss Addy said Kirk hid a USB stick from police on which he had illegal pictures of children and did a factory reset of the laptop he did tell police he had.

He has previous convictions for breaking into a primary school and stealing girls' PE kit and possessing indecent images of children, and was released on November 14, 2014. He was arrested on December 5.