A 40-YEAR-OLD man who attempted to communicate indecently with a 12-year-old girl has been jailed for 12 months and placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Ashley Bell approached his intended victim on the Instagram messaging service, before switching the conversation to Snapchat – where messages delete themselves once they've been read.

Despite being told she was getting ready for school and looking forward to her 13th birthday, Jedburgh Sheriff Court heard the convicted sex offender instigated conversations about sex toys, breasts and "spent quite a bit of time" boasting about the size of his manhood.

It later emerged the person Bell had been communicating with was in fact an undercover police officer and their chat had been recorded.

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Bell, who appeared in the dock from custody, admitted intentionally, and for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification, or of humiliating, distressing or alarming a person he believed was a child under the age of 13, sending messages of a sexual nature to her over social media.

Bell, described as a prisoner in Edinburgh, committed the offence at an address in Lovel Court, Hawick, and elsewhere, between March 6 and 15 this year.

His sentence was backdated to March 30 when he was first remanded in connection with the case.