AN ILLEGAL immigrant who tried to rape a 12-year-old girl in Trowbridge Park has been jailed for four years.

Kenneth Jones, 39, of Westbourne Road, Trowbridge, was jailed at Swindon Crown Court on Friday after admitting attempted rape.

He also admitted three charges of supplying the class A drugs, heroin and crack cocaine, in East Sussex.

Jones, who came to the UK from Jamaica in 2000, could be deported when he is released from prison after the court heard he had stayed on despite his student visa expiring.

Judge Tom Longbotham called the sex attack "disgraceful behaviour" and recommended Jones for deportation.

Stacey Turner, prosecuting, said Jones met the victim a number of times as she was with a group of friends in the town park.

On November 11, 2005, the victim went with Jones to a nearby shop where he was going to buy alcohol for her and her friends.

The girl told police it was during this journey Jones had removed her trousers and pants and raped her.

Ms Turner said: "After she returned her friends said she was in a mood and about a month later she made a disclosure to the mother of a friend.

"The police spoke to the defendant and he agreed he was walking to the shop to buy the alcohol.

"He said she took hold of his hand, pulled him towards her, they had what can best be described as a cuddle."

Jones told police the girl tried to have sex with him but they did not manage it.

The court was told because of the girl's age she was not capable of consenting to sex with him.

Ms Turner said Jones had also supplied drugs to an undercover police officer three times during a sting in the Hove area of Sussex last year.

Stephen Moody, defending, said Jones had left Jamaica because of threats, leaving behind his child. But funding problems during his IT course led him into an itinerant lifestyle, the court heard.

Mr Moody said Jones had been a willing participant in what took place but had thought the girl was 16 years old.

Judge Longbotham said: "The court is entitled to ask; what is a 39-year-old man doing associating with a 12-year-old girl and other adolescents in Trowbridge Park of an evening in November? And the answer can't be anything other than an unhealthy interest in young girls."

Jones was jailed for 18-months for the attempted rape and two and a half years to run consecutively for the drugs offences.

He will have to register as a sex offender for ten years and Judge Longbotham also passed a sex offenders prevention order banning him from contacting the victim.