A pervert who tried to arrange a sex session with an eight-year-old girl was arrested by police at Heathrow - after returning from the South Pole!

Kent Police pounced on Simon Rouen at the airport as he returned from Chile.

But while he was working in the South Pole Rouen, 36, had been communicating with two undercover police officers - expressing his desire to sexually abuse a young girl.

Various emails were exchanged, with the final one sent from Chile as Rouen made his way back to England.

Rouen, of Redruth in Cornwall, was arrested at the airport terminal by officers from Kent Police’s paedophile online investigation team and taken to Maidstone police station for interview.

A review of data on his computer also showed that he was storing indecent images of children.

He was charged with arranging the facilitation of a child sex offence and possessing indecent images of children, and was jailed for three years at Southwark Crown Court.

Detective Constable Jo Gordon from Kent Police said: "Throughout the course of the emails he sent, Simon Rouen demonstrated a very real desire to sexually abuse the child when he returned to England.

"Fortunately, through our proactive investigations we were able to identify the risk he posed to children and intercept him before any child could be abused.

"We will use all the techniques available to us to apprehend people who prey upon children online, and who use the internet as a tool to find children to sexually abuse or to view indecent images of children."

Rouen will now be subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order and will be on the Sex Offenders’ Register.

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