York’s top judge has ordered a report into a young paedophile from the city to find out how dangerous he is.

The Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, wants to know how great a risk Leo George Neal, 24, poses for other people before he sentences him for a catalogue of sexual offences involving children.

Neal was on bail for sexual matters when he carried out his latest offences, York Crown Court heard, and had previous convictions for sexual matters.

He appeared at York Crown Court via a video link from prison for his latest hearing and admitted three offences involving an underage girl and three offences of having indecent images of children.

His solicitor advocate Graham Parkin said Neal wanted to be sentenced immediately for those offences and others. But the judge declined and adjourned the case.

He told him: “I am ordering a pre-sentence report to assess dangerousness” and told him to co-operate with the probation officer preparing the report.

If a judge decides that there is a significant risk that a defendant will commit offences  that will cause serious harm to others, he can pass an extended sentence that imposes extra controls on the defendant when he or she is released from the custodial part of their sentence.

The judge remanded Neal, of Speculation Street, off Walmgate, York, in custody.

Neal was made subject to a sexual harm prevention order when he was sentenced for sexual offences on November 21, 2019, at York Crown Court.

It included conditions that he was not to be in the same house as children and not to contact children.

At his latest appearance before York Crown Court, he pleaded guilty to sexual communication with a girl under 16 years old, inciting  the same girl to engage in sexual activity and breaching the sexual harm prevention order by having communication with a child.

The court was told the girl was real.

The indecent images of children charges that Neal admitted at the same time referred to 43 indecent videos of children found in his possession, 33 of them were of the worst category, and 63 pictures of children, 32 of the worst category, also in his possession.

Neal had previously admitted offences committed when he contacted a “decoy” social media profile online in the same month as he contacted the real girl.

The profile account purported to belong to a child but was actually run by an adult. Neal pleaded guilty to attempted sexual communication with a child and breaching the sexual harm prevention order by attempting to contact the child.

York Crown Court heard at the time he contacted the real and the fake girls, he had been released on bail in connection with breaching his sexual harm prevention order the previous year by being in a house where children lived. He admitted the offence.

He will be sentenced for all offences on April 8.