A 60-year-old paramedic resigned after arriving at a supermarket car park expecting to meet a schoolgirl for sex.

But waiting for him at the site in Rochester were undercover police officers who found indecent items in his motorcycle bag.

Now married Maurice Clayton has been jailed for two years after admitting five sex offences, including arranging to meet a child for sex.

Clayton, of Oakland Lane, Biggin Hill was told by the judge that anyone listening to the facts "could feel nothing but revulsion and anger."

Maidstone Crown Court heard how undercover officers had set up a sting operation on a porn website.

Prosecutor Bridget Todd said that an officer posed as a single woman called Jodie living in Chatham, with a 10-year-old daughter called Millie.

The court heard that although the site is used legitimately, it also attracts paedophiles, including Clayton using the name "Mole999".

The medic had been on the site for 841 days and claimed to live in south-east London and Kent.

Clayton began asking sexual questions about Jodie and Millie, telling the undercover officer that he was married "but his wife didn't know about his sexual interests," added Ms Todd.

He then told her about his desires sickening detail and told her he worked for the ambulance service, sending two photographs of a paramedic on a motorcycle.

Clayton also boasted about talking with other 13-year-old girls - but had been "stood up many times".

Genevieve Reed, defending, said Clayton studied for a paramedic degree after leaving school and had worked for the ambulance service for 36 years.

"He resigned once he was arrested for these offences so as not to bring the ambulance service into disrepute, " she added.

"Outside his work he was lonely and isolated and dived into a fantasy world and sometimes it is difficult to pull yourself out and reconnect with the real world."

She read a letter from Clayton's wife, a former nurse, who wrote: "On October 27 2020 I watched Mr Clayton ride his motorbike from our house in the morning and I have not seen him since."

She said that when police arrived at her house she feared her husband had been in an accident but when she learned of the reasons for the arrest "my whole world was turned upside down."

Judge Charles Gratwicke told him: "Nobody sitting in this court and hearing the circumstances of these offences and your conversations could feel anything but revulsion and anger."

He said children were "entitled to their childhood and innocence and entitled to be protected from people like yourself."

Clayton was put on the Sex Offender's Register for 10 years.

Detective Constable Darran Bassett, of the Paedophile Online Investigation Team, said: "There can be no doubt that Clayton poses a real danger to children. He has displayed a clear desire and determination to sexually abuse a child in the most abhorrent ways and the graphic detail he included in his online messages was hugely concerning.

"Protecting children from sexual abuse and harm is a priority for Kent Police and as this case shows we will continue to do everything in our power to identify, and take robust action against people like Clayton."

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