A paedophile council worker took bubble bath and cider to a meeting with the 10-year-old “daughter” of a woman he met on a nudist website.

But Swindon Crown Court heard the girl was a fiction and her “mother” an undercover police officer trawling website True Nudist in order to snare would-be paedophiles. The officer spent four months chatting to Michael Bamfield online before they arranged to meet in west Swindon.

Jailing the 59-year-old for two years and nine months, Judge Jason Taylor QC said: “You claimed you wouldn’t have followed through and it was all fantasy. Your actions suggest otherwise and I’m sure that had a child been present you would have sought to follow through and that wouldn’t have been limited to just sitting around naked, which is what you tried to make out to the police.

“Notwithstanding the officer was tip-toeing a very fine line [between] enticement and incitement, it is this willingness to follow through that is most worrying in this case.”

Wiltshire Times:

Bamfield's police custody shot Picture: WILTSHIRE POLICE 

Prosecutor David Maunder had earlier told the court an undercover officer had been operating on social media site True Nudist. On Valentine’s Day, February 14, she was contacted by a Bamfield, using the profile name “Mickybamf”.

Bamfield told her he had been a nudist since his 20s, lived in Bristol and suggested they become friends. Their conversation moved to WhatsApp at the end of February and they exchanged personal details, including that he was a homelessness officer at South Gloucestershire council.

Posing as the mother, the officer claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a relative. The same man had “trained” her 10-year-old daughter while she watched on, she said.

The conversations grew more sexually explicit, with Bamfield asking about the young girl’s “experience” and talking about having sex with her. The officer sent a picture of a child, while the man sent images of his private parts. He also talked of taking them on holiday to a naturist camp over the summer.

On June 4 he left his daughter’s flat in Salisbury, where he had stayed the night, and drove to West Swindon to meet the mother and daughter. In his Vauxhall was bubble bath, sweets, cider for the mother and a nail file. He arrived at The Harvey pub, near the Link Centre, and was arrested in his car before being handed over to detectives from Devon and Cornwall Police.

In his interview with police he described it as a fantasy behind the computer and said he had been “playing along with a game”. He denied he would have sexually assaulted the girl had she existed.

Bamfield, of Whiteway Close, Bristol, admitted arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sexual offence.

Tony Bignall, defending, said his client was of effective good character. “There is regret he’s been foolish and as the author of the pre-sentence report has said, after a number of months of stress and isolation he sadly commits this very foolish offence.”

At previous hearings, concern had been raised about the undercover officer’s communication with Bamfield, with a previous prosecutor saying it fell just the right side of incitement.

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Taylor said: “I am concerned by various proactive and determined suggestions and photographs made and provided by this woman, not least because of the matter of the encouragement but particularly because she was an undercover police officer.

“Both the prosecution and the defence have, during the course of these proceedings, remarked that her behaviour bordered just on the right side of incitement.

“Notwithstanding that, however, no one forced you to do what you did next. It was your choice.”

In addition to the 33 month jail sentence, Bamfield must sign onto the sex offenders’ register for life. An application for a sexual harm prevention order is expected to be made by prosecutors later this month.