A PAEDOPHILE coffee shop manager has been jailed for trying to meet an 11-year-old girl for sex.

Kevin Baldock, was the boss of Revival Coffee Company in George Street, Hove - where he would message the girl online from an electronic tablet.

Little did he know, though, the girl was an undercover police officer.

Baldock, 47, was handed four and a half years behind bars for two counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity at Hove Crown Court today after pleading guilty last month.

He will be a registered sex offender indefinitely, and was given a ten-year sexual harm prevention order severely restricting his access to children and computers.

Baldock, of The Drive, Hove, was arrested in Crawley on December 18 following an intelligence-led investigation by detectives from Sussex Police's Paedophile Online Investigation Unit.

A charge of grooming in relation to the same matter was not proceeded with and will lie on the court file.

Detective Constable Martin Harmer said: "Baldock was engaging in sexualised chat online with someone he thought was an 11-year-old girl, with the intention of meeting for sex.

"In fact he was in contact with an undercover police officer.

"When he made an arrangement to meet her in Crawley town centre on that Monday morning it was with the clear intention of finding a hotel room and engaging in sex with her.

"But when he arrived by train we arrested him at Crawley railway station."