Simon Gerrard was confronted by paedophile hunters after asking for sex from someone he believed to be a 12-year-old girl.
The ‘lonely’ 49-year-old also told the ‘girl’ he wanted to ‘touch her up her skirt’ and asked if she’d perform a sex act on him.
But he was actually messaging a member of paedophile hunter group Innocence Project North West, who had set up a fake Facebook profile under the name Ellie-May Short.
Simon Gerrard, of Cherry Tree Lane in Aughton, messaged the Ellie-May’s profile for five days during March 2018, during which it was stated on eight occasions that the girl was 12-years-old.
He was later contacted by a female member of the group, who wasn’t pretending to be a child, and arranged to meet her at Ormskirk Bus Station.
When Simon Gerrard arrived there, he was confronted by the group and the police were called. His mobile phone was confiscated and police searched his home, including carrying out checks on his desktop computer.
During those searches, the conversations with the profile were found but no evidence of any further inappropriate activity was uncovered.
Simon Gerrard was arrested at the bus station and the leader of the hunting group provided the police with printouts of the conversations, which filled 28 pages.
He was given a 12 month community order, ordered to carry out 25 days of rehabilitation activities and given a six week curfew.
Simon Gerrard was also placed on the sex offenders register for five years, given a sexual harm prevention order lasting the same time period and fined £170.
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