A MAN who groomed a schoolgirl on Facebook has dodged prison.

David Walls offered to buy the teenager cigarettes and football match tickets if she met him for a sexual encounter.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the girl initially agreed but "freaked out" and withdrew from the arrangement.

Walls, 35, of Colwyn Road, Hartlepool, was said to have been going through a difficult time when he contacted the youngster over five or six days in early 2015.

Judge Peter Armstrong, at Teesside Crown Court, imposed a 16-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered him to do a 30-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Walls was also put on the sex offenders' register for ten years, and had a Sexual Harm Prevention Order made which bans him from having unsupervised contact with girls under-16 and includes "extensive" restrictions on his computer use.

The court heard that Walls was prosecuted for harassment in 2010 when he turned up uninvited at a woman's house following contact on Facebook, and his actions were "unwanted".

Judge Armstrong told him: "You better be warned that anything further remotely like this or any breach of the order will inevitably end up with you having to serve an immediate term of imprisonment."

Walls admitted a charge of attempting to arrange the commission of a child sexual offence at an earlier hearing.