A SIXTY-two-year-old Carlisle man arranged a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old boy unaware that he was blundering into an online police sting operation.

When Keith Fisher was confronted - not by the child he was hoping to meet but by a police officer - he said: “I’ve been an idiot... I’m disgusted with my myself.”

The defendant, of Scotby Close, Carlisle, admitted attempting to sexually communicate with a child and arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

At Carlisle Crown Court, prosecutor Gerard Rogerson described the offending, which was uncovered during a police operation last October.

This involved an undercover officer creating a profile on the online dating site Grindr, which describes itself as a dating application designed for gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

“It requires users to be aged 18,” said Mr Rogerson but this is not verified, and users are simply trusted to provide a date of birth when setting up their profile.

The defendant began communicating with the ‘child’ in the early evening of October 17 last year, and the under-cover officer said clearly that he was a 14-year-old boy. “But the conversation quickly became sexualised,” said Mr Rogerson.

Fisher then told the “boy”: I have to stop this, as much as I am tempted. If you said you were 16 you are legal but 14 will mean [getting into trouble].”

As the conversation continued, over a period of two or so hours, Fisher agreed to meet the child in the carpark outside Hollywood Bowl on Currock Road, Carlisle. At one point, the court heard, he asked the child for a picture of himself urinating.

He also told the child he would perform a sex act on him.

Mr Rogerson then outlined how Fisher reacted when the police officer arrived and arrested him at 9.40pm. “He made significant comments," said the prosecutor. "He said ‘I’ve been stupid; I’ve been an idiot.

“I should not have come down here; I’m disgusted with myself. How did you know about it? You were you tracking my phone, probably. I should have stopped right away.”

Later, after refusing to comment during his police interview, Fisher – a man of previous good character - claimed he was innocent and that he thought he was being wound up by someone, though he later admitted his guilt.

Marion Weir, defending, said the defendant simply wanted to understand what he had behaved as he did. His comment upon being arrested – that he had been an idiot – summed up his feelings, said the barrister.

She said: “References speak of him with one voice – as a man who is hard-working, friendly and supportive and these offences are completely out of character for him.”

A former supermarket employee, Fisher had worked throughout his life and – despite suffering a heart attack while at work – he hoped to find fresh employment. “There is a very real prospect of rehabilitation,” added the barrister.

Judge Nicholas Barker told Fisher: “Your intention was clear when you began communicating with what, I repeat, you believed was a 14-year-old boy; you began sexualised conversation.

“You knew exactly what you were doing, and it was wrong.”

But noting the defendant’s previous good character and that this was a “single event” offence, the judge accepted that Fisher is a suitable candidate for rehabilitation.

He imposed 13 months jail, suspended for two years.

The sentence includes 20 rehabilitation activity days and 200 hours of unpaid work, as well as an eight-week, tagged curfew between 7pma and 5am. Fisher will be on the Sex Offender Register for a decade.