A Manchester doorman who travelled to Luton to meet a 14-year-old schoolgirl for sex was caught in a sting by a ‘paedophile hunter’.

Shaun Torevell, 48, believed he was having explicit conversations with a schoolgirl over the internet.

But the ‘girl’ was campaigner Neil Ivall who handed Torevell over to police when they met at Luton railway station.

Torevell was convicted on Tuesday of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming during a trial.

He previously told the jury: “I am not a paedophile. The conversations on Facebook were crude, but it was bravado.

“She never once said I was being inappropriate, but she would reply with kisses and smiley faces.

“I thought she existed and I was going to meet the woman in the photograph. There is no way I would date a 14 year old girl.”

Despite this Luton Crown Court, Judge Philip Bartle QC granted him bail while probation reports are prepared, but warned Torevell: “You have been found guilty of an extremely seriously offence. There is a real likelihood the sentence will be one of immediate custody.”

During the trial, Mr Ivall described he set up a website called ‘Chris Fear - Paedophile Hunter’ after a member of his family had been the victim of grooming. CHRIS - stands for Children Have Rights in Society.

He told the jury he set up a fake Facebook account in the name of a 14-year-old, using the picture of a friend when she was that age.

The public profile gave the girl’s date of birth as being 2002. “We make the girl’s age clear, straight away,” he said.

On Tuesday 3 May he received a friend request from Torevell and two days later the defendant is said to have told the ‘girl’ saying she was ‘bang tidy’.

The jury heard Torevell said ‘I hope you don’t mind chatting to an older guy’ and later sent her explicit pictures of himself and messages that made it clear he wanted sex.

In another message, the doorman told her: “I work in a few clubs in Manchester. I am a bouncer. When I am bored I take my black Harley Davidson for a blast.”

Mr Ivall said he made it clear the girl was 14, offering the defendant a way out.

Prosecutor Rory Keene told the jury that the defendant agreed to meet the girl at Luton railway station in the early hours of 9 May. When he arrived, after pleading with her to stay because he was delayed, he was greeted by Neil Ivall and the police were called.

Torevell told the police that he had come to Luton to say hello to the girl, insiting he thought she was over 18. “If she was a young girl I would have given her £20 for a taxi to go home,” he said.

In the witness box he said that he thought he was coming to meet a young woman not a 14 year old girl.

He said the girl’s Facebook picture looked like that of a woman over 18, possibly 20. Although in online chats she said several times she was 14, he thought she was role playing and lying about her age, the jurors were told.

He said he first got talking to her on a website entitled ‘young girls looking for older men’.

Torevell, who had been suspended from his job at the time, said he was bored at home. He wanted to take his motorbike out for a trip and that was why he arranged to meet the girl, the jurors were told.

Torevell will be sentenced on October 21.