A SCOUT leader who sent explicit messages by text to a teenage girl was warned he faces a possible prison sentence.

Benjamin Edward Cockburn, 27, was said to have planned to pick the 14-year-old girl up from school intending to take her home with him to carry out 'practical' sex lessons, putting into action the intimate acts he referred to in the text messages.

Durham Crown Court heard that the plan was only foiled when the girl's mother discovered a written list of his text messages in her bedroom and found out about the proposed rendezvous the day before it was due to take place.

She told her husband, who went to the police. Cockburn was arrested, and both his and the girl's mobile phones were seized to reveal the messages sent between them.

Cockburn claimed he was 'relieved' that the girl was forced to cancel the arranged meeting as he was looking at some way of getting out of it, without hurting her feelings.

He claimed he never intended the meeting to take place, and the messages were just sent 'for fun.'

Cockburn, of Millford Way, Bowburn, a signalling technician for Network Rail, and an Explorer scout leader, denied a charge of inciting the girl to commit an indecent act with him.

But a jury took only 15 minutes on the second day of his trial to return a unanimous guilty verdict.

Judge Michael Cartlidge adjourned sentence for the preparation of reports on Cockburn by the probation service's sex offender team.

He must also sign the Sex Offenders' Register, forbidding him working with children.

Bailing Cockburn to return for sentence in three weeks, Judge Cartlidge told him: "You may go to custody. The fact you have been bailed isn't an indication whether or not it will be custody."

Earlier the court heard that the girl had a crush on a 20-year-old friend of Cockburn and regularly sent intimate text messages to him and another man.

Both men gave evidence to say they had returned messages using similar explicit terms.

After they finished giving evidence Judge Cartlidge called both men, in their early twenties, back into court to admonish them for sending such messages to a 14-year-old girl.