A JUDGE has branded a 66-year-old Cwmbran man who was snared by a vigilante group after arranging to meet a girl he believed to be 14 years old “pathetic”.

Alan Mullen of Court Farm Road appeared at Cardiff Crown Court today (Friday) after previously pleading guilty to grooming.

The court heard the pensioner had begun speaking to two girls online in April, one of whom told him she was 14 years old. In fact she was a woman in her 30s who was a member of Patronus, an online group dedicated to snaring paedophiles.

Julian Greenwood, prosecuting, told the court Mullen had told the fictitious girl he was 49 years old and, when the conversation turned sexual, told her to delete the records of their conversations, saying “I am very wary about talking to young girls, I’ve got to be very careful”.

He had arranged to meet her at Newport’s Beechwood Park on Friday, May 19, but left when he saw she was not there. But when he got back to his home other members of the group were waiting and detained him until the police arrived.

Hilary Roberts, defending, said his client was “utterly ashamed of himself” and “rather bewildered by his behaviour”.

“He can’t properly explain why he behaved in this way,” he said.

Handing Mullen a 14 month-prison sentence, suspended for two years, Judge William Gaskell, branded the defendant “pathetic”.

“You are a 66 year old man,” he said. “What on Earth were you doing?”

Mullen was also handed a four-month curfew banning him from going out between 8pm and 6am every day and was electronically tagged.

He must also inform police if he moves house at any point in the next 10 years and was ordered to carry out 180 hours of unpaid work and a 30 day rehabilitation activity.

He must also pay £425 costs and a £140 victim surcharge.