Paedophile arrested at McDonald's meeting after police sting

But – unbeknown to him – Paul Coulthwaite, a truck driver for Brakes based at the firm’s Omega depot, was actually being ensnared in a police sting.

He was arrested upon his arrival at the fast food joint and has now been locked up.

Liverpool Crown Court heard this week that the 55-year-old began speaking with an officer posing as a 13-year-old girl called Paige on a chatroom in January this year.

Coulthwaite, of Haydock Street in Newton-le-Willows, told the girl that he was ‘horny’, suggested that they meet up for a ‘cuddle and a kiss’ and shower together and instructed her to perform a sex act on herself.

In January and February, the delivery driver began chatting with another decoy account.

Believing he was speaking to a 12-year-old girl called Rebecca, he told her she was ‘pretty and sexy’.

The pervert said that he wanted them to be ‘online boyfriend and girlfriend’ and listed a series of depraved sex acts he wanted to carry out with her.

On February 12, Coulthwaite travelled to meet her at a branch of McDonald’s in Preston – bringing WKD, baby wipes, a kitchen towel, a mint Aero, Mini Eggs and a necklace with the girl’s name on it with him.

But he was swiftly detained by police after arriving at the premises.

The defendant, who has no previous convictions, admitted two counts of sexual communications with a child, attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity and meeting a child following grooming.

He was handed three years behind bars by judge Thomas Teague, who also ordered Coulthwaite to sign the sex offenders’ register for life and handed him an indefinite sexual harm prevention order.