A CONVICTED paedophile who carried out sex attacks on schoolgirls in Dudley and Stourbridge has been locked up for nine years.

Judge Amjad Nawaz at Wolverhampton Crown Court told Anthony Showell he would be on licence for a further four years and warned him he would only be allowed back into society when authorities felt he was safe.

He told the 58-year-old: “I am in no doubt you represent a real danger to young girls.”

The Judge said Showell had shown a degree of determination, planning and bravado in committing the crimes against two vulnerable victims.

He added: “You displayed predatory behaviour. You befriended families who had children and you betrayed their trust.”

He said Showell had groomed one victim over a period of time to get sexual gratification and his thinking had been “warped” in what was a “disturbing” case.

The Judge said previous prison sentences for similar offending had done nothing to deter Showell from carrying out sex attacks on children and his offending had badly affected their young lives.

Showell had been working as a barman in a Stourbridge pub when he sexually assaulted his first victim who was just nine - Tim Harrington, prosecuting, said.

The girl had kept what happened to herself until finally revealing the abuse to a friend but by then Showell had fled the area when it became known he was a sex offender.

He then turned up in the Dudley area where he found work in a social club and he then befriended another young girl who was “deliberately targeted".

Mr Harrington said Showell was showing kindness to the 15-year-old when she was in fact being groomed for sexual activity and it was only after she confided in her mother that he was arrested.

There were a total of 30 crimes on his record, the prosecutor added, and 11 related to sexual offending.

Showell, who was jailed for two years in 1998 and then for six years in 2004, committed the latest offences in breach of a Sexual Offenders Protection Order, said Mr Harrington, which ruled he should have no contact at all with young girls under 16.

Mr Harrington added: “This is a man who took advantage of the situation he was in. There was a significant degree of planning and grooming in his offending.”

Gurdeep Garcha, defending, said Showell had spared his young victims the ordeal of having to give evidence with his guilty pleas.

He added: "He has already indicated he deserves to be in prison. There is a very real prospect he will never be allowed back into society. Measures in the past to protect victims have not stopped him.”

Showell, now of no fixed address, admitted five charges involving sexual activity with a child and serious sexual assault and the Judge said reports prepared for his sentencing made “frightening reading”.