A VIGILANTE group posing as a teenage girl caught a 23-year-old Stourport man in a trap as he made sexual suggestions, a court heard.

Andrew Jackson responded after vigilantes Guardians of the North set up a Facebook page for a fake 13-year-old called Ellie, Worcester Crown Court was told.

Jackson sent her a message which said "hello, you're beautiful" and went on to ask her age, Giles Nelson, prosecuting, told the court.

She told him but the messages still became plainly sexualised later and he gave her his address so she could send him some of her underwear. He also sent a picture of male genitalia and suggested a sex act, Mr Nelson told the court.

Jackson of Barnfield Road, Stourport, pleaded guilty to attempting to engage in sexual activity with a child.

The court heard he had been given a caution for a similar offence in 2014 when he contacted a girl on social media and made suggestions to her until she told him to leave her alone.

"He didn't take the hint," Judge Daniel Pearce-Higgins, QC, said.

Jackson was attracted by a false Facebook profile of a girl aged 13 or 14 set up by vigilantes as "a perfectly legitimate form of entrapment," the judge said.

Jackson was ordered to attend a three year sex offenders group work programme with 15 days of a rehabilitation activity.

He was also given a sexual harm prevention order restricting his contact with children under 16 and ordered to register as a sex offender, both orders to run for five years.