The profile was actually an undercover officer and Ive was arrested as he stepped off the train on to the platform.

Following his arrest the 42-year-old admitted to police he shouldn’t have done it.

PC Kirsti Innes, of the internet child abuse team, said: “Robert Ive is a manipulative sexual offender who has various other convictions for child sex offences and attempted to meet who he thought was a 14-year-old child for his own sexual gratification.

“Our specially trained officers are experienced in tracking these types of offenders and bringing them to justice.

“Had it not been for the work of dedicated officers this man could have gone on to groom a real child instead of being behind bars.”

Ive started talking on Wednesday, May 18, this year, to the online profile and he was immediately informed she was 14-years-old.

Despite this, he asked her about sexual acts she has performed and asked her to perform sexual acts on herself.

He continued to groom the girl, who told him she was from Leicestershire, into travelling 100 miles to Hampshire for the purpose of staying with him and having sex.

Ive told the girl how to travel without people becoming suspicious and pretended to be the girl’s friend’s dad in a phone call to her ‘mum’, another undercover officer.

On Tuesday, May 21 Ive was arrested at Farnborough train station where he was expecting to meet the girl.

Appearing at Winchester Crown Court on Thursday, August 11, following a guilty plea, Ive was jailed for four years and eight months for arranging/facilitating the commission of a child sex offence and breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

June 2010

Robert Ive jailed after grooming teenager on Facebook Internet site

HE billed himself as a “special guy” and lavished a young girl with attention and affection.

Within just a few weeks, through endless conversations over the Internet, he had told the 13-year-old how much he cared for her and even convinced her they should meet.

But behind the façade, the man she thought had become her boyfriend was in fact a 29- year-old paedophile grooming her for sex.

Depraved Robert Ive is today starting a four-year jail term after luring the vulnerable girl into his clutches and having under-age sex with her on three occasions.

It’s thought the girl, who had been bullied at school and “sought solace” in her laptop computer, had only been in contact with him for a matter of months, if not weeks, before she succumbed to his charm.

It’s not the first time Ive has been hauled before the courts for sickening behaviour with a child, having previously been convicted of sexually touching a ten-year-old girl he approached in a swimming pool.

At Southampton Crown Court he was described as “a real danger to young children”.

Judge Tom Longbotham told Ive, who pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual activity with a child aged 13-18, his conduct had been predatory.

He said: “You identified her and you had sex with her. It seems that was the only reason to contact her. You took every opportunity to have sex with her.”

Ive’s behaviour – thought to be the first Facebook grooming case in Hampshire – was only uncovered by detectives when a hunt was launched for the 13-year-old who had vanished from her Southampton home.