A 50-year-old man who told a 13-year-old girl he would “treat her like a queen” and buy her expensive knickers and bras was given a suspended prison sentence at Bradford Crown Court today.

Paul Alvey pleaded guilty to attempting to communicate with a child for sexual gratification in 2018.

He was caught by his offender manager in Bradford with a message on his phone saying “looking for white slag aged 18 or under.”

Two phones were seized and further communications were found, including “I know you’re only 13 but it doesn’t worry me” and “I’ll treat you like a queen and buy you expensive clothes…knickers and bras.”

He discussed meeting the girl in a park when she was not wearing a bra and said he wanted to touch her sexually.

Prosecutor Gerald Hendron said Alvey was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, suspended for two years, at Bradford Crown Court in December, 2018, for five similar offences committed in 2017.

In 2016, Alvey was cautioned for sexual activity with a female with a mental disorder, Mr Hendron said.

Mr Hendron said Alvey was already the subject of an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order and he had to sign on the sex offender register.

He wasn’t in breach of the suspended sentence because the offence pre-dated its imposition.

Alvey’s advocate, Dale Harris, said he had not committed any offences for more than two years.

He lived in a care centre for men only in Glossop, Derbyshire, and he had no phone or internet access.

Alvey was disabled and had a leg amputated last year. He attended court in a motorised wheelchair.

Mr Harris said his client’s ability and opportunity to commit further similar offences was severely limited.

He was lonely and isolated and had benefited greatly from the help offered by the probation service following the suspended sentence order.

Judge Jonathan Rose sentenced Alvey to a “stand-alone” suspended sentence order of six months’ imprisonment suspended for two years.

He said Alvey had an “unnatural, unlawful and wholly inappropriate sexual interest in children.”

But it would be unjust to send him to prison because he had committed no offences for more than two years.

Children were protected from him by his disability, his lack of internet access and the indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order.