A DAD has told how he pretended to be his stepdaughter to snare a paedophile.

The man, who cannot be named to protect his stepdaughter's identity, used her messaging app to arrange to meet Christopher Mills from Colchester.

Subsequently Mills, 55, of Ripple Way, was jailed for 14 months for grooming when he appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court.

The girl, 14, at the time, has since moved out of the Essex area with her family.

Her stepdad, 33, discovered Mills had been messaging her on Tango, a mobile phone chat app in June 2014.

His first message said: 'You look cute.'

Her stepdad said: "I was horrified.

"The more I went down the chat, I could see parts were missing. I believe there had been other ways of communicating - they also spoke through Skype."

Mills' profile picture showed him with grey hair which raised alarm bells.

"It was clear he was in his 50s," added her stepfather.

As he read through the messages, he saw they spanned two weeks and Mills had been begging the girl to meet up with him - even offering to pick her up from school.

The lorry driver had sent her intimate pictures of himself and persuaded her to send photos of herself in her underwear.

When she replied and explained she was only 14, Mills told her that she looked at least 17, despite the fact her profile picture clearly showed her secondary school uniform.

Mills also started quizzing her about her sexual experiences.

As a shy teenager, she kept dodging his questions and trying to change the subject.

It was then that her stepfather, a dad-of-six, took the matter into his own hands.

"My priority was to protect her.

"I managed to start talking to him and arranged to meet up.

"It was in a car park in Chelmsford at 10pm. He jumped at the chance.

"I got in the car and shot off to Chelmsford. I got as far as near to Hatfield Peverel and then thoughts were going through my mind so I called the police."

Officers advised him to go straight to Chelmsford Police Station.

"After seeing what evidence I had they said they were sending someone to get him and arrested him there and then."

The girl's stepdad had routinely checked his children's phones after attending an evening class aimed at educating parents about the potential dangers.

The stepfather and the girl's mum explained to her they had seen the messages and she was not in any trouble.

Mills pleaded guilty to inciting a child to be involved in pornography and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

In August he was jailed for 14 months.

He has to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years and is banned from having unsupervised contact with any child under 16.

The girl's stepfather, who attended the court hearing, added: "I needed to see if there was any remorse on his face and unfortunately there wasn't. He didn't care what he did.