A PREDATORY paedophile who indecently assaulted a teenager at a pub where she worked was jailed yesterday.

Dean Solomon, 48, was out on licence from a prison sentence for a previous sex attack when he targeted her at the bar near Darlington.

Solomon, who has previous convictions for rape and other serious sex charges, denied indecent assault, but was found guilty by a jury at Newcastle Crown Court last month.

The court heard how Solomon, whose address was withheld for legal reasons, had embarked on a campaign to groom the youngster using sexual innuendos and trying to isolate her from other staff.

During a sentencing hearing yesterday, Judge Tim Hewitt said Solomon's plan was thwarted because the victim was aware of his intentions and alerted her mother.

The judge told him: "With a younger and more impressionable girl, you may have got further in your sexual quest, as you have many times before."

The judge said Solomon was a predatory paedophile who posed a high risk of re-offending.

After the indecent assault, in which Solomon groped the girl's bottom in the kitchen while she was at work, he was arrested and recalled to prison for the remainder of a sentence imposed at Hull Crown Court last year for indecently assaulting a 13-year-old girl at a funfair.

His earliest release date from that sentence is February 2007, which Judge Hewitt ordered him to serve, as well as a further nine months for the attack, with a three-year extended licence period after his release.

Judge Hewitt also imposed a sexual offences prevention order on him for five years, which is designed to keep him away from young girls.

Speaking after yesterday's hearing, the mother of the girl, who took the job to gain independence, said she felt the streets were safer now Solomon was behind bars.

She said: "Luckily, I have always brought my daughter up to have no secrets from me and to be aware of people like him.

"He should have been locked up for life because of the risk he posed to young girls like my daughter."

Defence barrister Robin Denny said Solomon wanted to be included in a sex offenders' treatment programme to help him overcome his problems.