A 55-year-old man has been sentenced to a two-year probation order after he sent intimate photos to what he thought was a 12-year-old girl.

Andrew John Shimmin, of Viking Road, Douglas, was caught after a ’sting’ by an online paedophile hunter group on Facebook who were posing as the girl.

Shimmin told ’her’ she was ’gorgeous’ and said he would like to kiss her after sending three pictures of his penis.

In court he admitted an offence of sending an indecent message by telecommunications which is a non-imprisonable offence.

Prosecutor James Robinson said: ’Regrettably the charge is the only one in Manx law that could be brought.’

But Mr Robinson added that this may change once a new Sexual Offences Bill was approved.

In coverage of a previous court appearance, we reported that a fake profile for the 12-year-old in the false name of Taylor Dean was set up on Facebook by Elite Solo Decoys, a group who aim to identify people who are sexual predators.

Fake profiles for children are set up and left dormant until someone makes contact.

Someone in the group then pretends to be the child.

On August 10, Shimmin made contact with the fake profile and started a Facebook Messenger chat.

He asked how old the girl was and she replied 12.

Shimmin replied saying: ’Blimey I didn’t know you were that young.’

During the Facebook conversation, he asked the ’girl’ to send him photographs and sent his to her.

The messages were shared publicly on Facebook by the paedophile hunter group and police arrested Shimmin on August 18.

Devices at his home were seized and analysed.

His living room was identified as the location where the penis photos had been taken and his phone showed a history of the Facebook conversation.

When interviewed, Shimmin told police he lived with his wife but they were not together.

He said that he befriended women on Facebook but spoke only to adults and swapped photos with them.

He claimed he could not recall speaking to a 12-year-old and when shown a photo of her said she ’looked about 13’.

Shimmin told police that he had been feeling lonely and was seeking attention but claimed he had not got any sexual gratification from the incident.

The court heard that he has no previous convictions.

A probation report raised serious concerns about Shimmin and said that he was a carer for his wife and daughter.

The report said that he had worked as a civil servant until 1999, then as a taxi driver until 2002.

He had then been unable to work due to a family issue.

The report said that Shimmin’s behaviour needed to be looked into further as he had not been very forthcoming when discussing the messages sent and had seemed to minimise his behaviour.

Defence advocate Winston Taylor said that Shimmin had swapped images of body parts online with consenting adults previously.

Mr Taylor said that there were concerns that his client was isolated and that he had not been on social media since the incident, nor did he intend to.

The advocate said that probation needed to assess if there was an actual danger to young persons.

Magistrates chair Michael Murley told Shimmin: ’Your behaviour is deeply disturbing.

’But whether or not the law is correct is not a matter for us, we must apply the law as it is.’

Shimmin was also ordered to pay £125 prosecution costs.