A MAN with a sexual obsession for young girls has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Martin Leonard, 25, who already has previous convictions for downloading indecent images on to his computer, targeted an eight-year-old girl on her own in Purfleet, Essex, and showed her indecent videos on his mobile phone.

The frightened girl shouted for her 12-year-old brother, who was nearby, while a woman took Leonard’s car registration number as he drove away on October 4.

Leonard, of St Clement’s Street, Oxford, who was at university in Essex at the time, was in breach of a sexual offences prevention order, imposed at Basildon Crown Court in October 2008 for downloading 6,366 indecent images and distributing one by email.

Leonard pleaded guilty to causing a child to watch a sexual act and to breaching an order banning him from being alone with a child.

At Chelmsford Crown Court, Judge Christopher Ball jailed Leonard for two-and-a-half years for the Purfleet offences, plus 12 months consecutively for the 2008 charges. He was also given an indefinite, sexual offences prevention order and must sign the sex offenders' register.

Judge Ball said: “You have moved from sitting and watching a computer screen in the privacy of your own home and sharing images with like-minded people to actually approaching, in the street, a vulnerable eight-year-old girl.”