A former policeman from Colchester has been put on the sex offenders’ register after pleading guilty to attempted child grooming.

Jonathan Davies-Brewin, 50, of East Hill, contacted who he thought was a 15-year-old boy using an alias on dating app Grindr on June 14, 2017.

The person he had actually spoken to was a vigilante man posing as a teenager.

Following a string of messages, they arranged to meet in Braintree later that day where Davies-Brewin was arrested.

Davies-Brewin appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court on January 9 this year where he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to meet a child under the age of 16 for the purposes of sexual grooming.

At the same court today, Davies-Brewin was sentenced to nine months in prison suspended for two years; told to pay £1,200 costs; ordered to take part in a sex offender treatment programme; and undertake 200 hours of unpaid community work and 25 rehabilitation days.

He was handed a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years, and put on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

At the time of the offences Davies-Brewin was a serving Essex Police officer and, following his arrest, was suspended from the force.

He subsequently resigned on January 18, 2018, but misconduct proceedings will still take place.

A spokesman for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the East of England said: “Davies-Brewin was a trusted police officer who betrayed that trust when he set out to abuse a boy. He must receive treatment as part of his sentence to lessen the risk he poses to children in the future.

“It is far too easy for predators to groom children online and a lot more must be done to stop online groomers before they abuse their victims.”

A new law that came into force last April saw 27 crimes of sending a sexual communication to a child recorded in Essex in just six months.

However, the charity spokesman said online child protection should not just be down to police.

The NSPCC is calling on Government to force social media companies to use existing algorithms to warn children about concerning behaviour and flag up grooming behaviour to moderators.