And he’s also been bizarrely telling other inmates he’s a “trained barrister” and offering legal advice.

According to jail sources he’s been dropping names of known dissidents, including Carl Reilly who recently pleaded guilty to membership of the IRA.

“Gavin has been running around the wing telling anyone who will listen that he’s using contacts in dissident republican groups to manipulate the Housing Executive points system,” said the source.

“He loosely knows Carl Reilly who is having his own legal issues and is friends with another dissident [name removed].”

“I can’t see either providing the codewords for Base 2 to get him housing but it’s all over the place that he’s been asking.

“He’s also been telling people he is a trained barrister and has been offering free legal advice.

“The barrister thing is bizarre and nobody can understand why he’s telling people this, though he is notorious for spoofing.”

Gillen is indeed “notorious” for spoofing. When cops arrested him for sending pictures of his penis to the teenage girl he told them he couldn’t be guilty because he was gay.

The court heard even though he knew full well he was almost 30 years older than the schoolgirl, Gillen still engaged the child in a series of flirtatious, sexually explicit messages, telling the teenager “she was a total honey”.

And we have learned from sources who know Gillen that he has a habit of sending unwanted sexual explicit messages to women.

It was December 2020 when he started sending images to the 13-year-old. Police were alerted and were able to take screenshots of the messages “but that was the extent of the co-operation” of the teen and her family, the court heard.

Arrested and interviewed, Gillen accepted he knew the girl was just 13 when sending her sexualised messages and the explicit images.

Claiming he had been in a bar drinking and taking cocaine, Gillen further claimed “he was trying to advise her to stay away from boys and said that he was a homosexual man”.

However, the prosecution said they “do not accept any suggestion that the defendant was in some way a gay man warning the injured party about boys”.

The barrister revealed that searches of Gillen’s devices had uncovered other “flirtatious chats” with women and also that the creep had looked up heterosexual adult pornography.

He said the images he sent were not his own penis but did accept his behaviour “was inappropriate”.

Jailing Gillen, Judge Peter Irvine KC said legal guidelines made it clear that offences involving the sexual exploitation of children are serious and must be met with appropriate sentences.

In addition to a 10-month jail sentence, Judge Irvine ordered Gillen to sign the sex offenders’ register for 10 years and also imposed a sexual offences prevention order, which places prohibitions on where Gillen can live, who he can date, where he can work and what devices he is allowed.