A MAN has been jailed after trying to meet a 14-year-old boy at McDonald's in a bid to then have sex with the child.

Frank Salmon was arrested when he went to meet the boy, who was actually an undercover police officer posing as a child on the gay hook-up app Grindr.

Salmon had moved the online conversations onto chat app Kik and started to talk sexually to the covert officer, who had said he was 14.

Southampton Crown Court heard how the 54-year-old of Harbourne Gardens, West End asked the boy about private parts of his body, and talked to him about sex and masturbation.

Salmon went to McDonald's in Shirley on June 23 this year to meet the child but was instead met by police.

He was arrested and gave no comment when interviewed.

Daily Echo: Southampton Crown Court. Southampton Crown Court.

His devices were seized, and officers then searched his home.

Prosecutor Matthew Lawson told the court how a device had been set up “overlooking the bed intentionally to record sexual activity”.

Salmon later admitted arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence.

Mr Lawson said Salmon’s actions were “grooming behaviour” and there was a large gap between his age and that of the decoy boy.

Mitigating, Peter Asteris said Salmon has a “degree of vulnerability” having suffered three heart attacks and he is currently seeing his GP for support.

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Salmon was “terrified and scared” and “is very anxious to persuade the court that he will never be in this position again,” Mr Asteris said.

Salmon claims he never intended to use the recording device above the bed.

But Judge Nicholas Rowland said: “What you were doing was communicating with what you thought was a 14-year-old boy.

“It is quite clear, on what I have heard, that there would have been recording of the sexual activity.”

Salmon was jailed for 28 months.

He was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and made to sign the sex offenders' register for the next five years.

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