Britain’s most brazen paedophile caught after he wrote to the Home Secretary to get the age of consent lowered is jailed

Britain’s most brazen paedophile was caught – after he wrote to the Home Secretary asking for child sex to be LEGALISED.

Disturbed Phillip Kirk wrote to Theresa May saying: “I have been a paedophile since the age of 13 and openly a paedophile for the last three years.”

His revolting actions also included researching child MURDER and local schools and girl guide groups in his home city of York, within weeks of being released from jail for other offences.

Prosecutor Laura Addy told York Crown Court how Kirk, 22, made the sickening searches, including for a UK police warrant, after being released in November last year.

Despite being closely monitored by police, Kirk also downloaded more than 1,000 indecent images of children and made a sex toy with children’s clothes.

Jailing Kirk, Recorder of York Judge Stephen Ashurst said: “Yours is an extremely disturbing case. I must address the danger you pose to the public in general and to children in general.

“It is clear you have a very unhealthy interest in children and despite all your recent experiences, nothing it seems deters you from offending.

“I am quite satisfied there is a strong public interest and I have a public duty to mark society’s revulsion at your behaviour by a sentence which provides effective protection for the public for a long period of time.”

Judge Ashurst described Kirk’s vile letter to the Home Secretary as a “deluded and dangerous plea to decriminalise sex with children.”

Kirk has previous convictions for breaking into a primary school and stealing girls’ PE kit and possessing indecent images of children, and was released on November 14, 2014. He was arrested on December 5.

He pleaded guilty to 21 charges of downloading indecent images of children, and was jailed for four years with another four years on probation.

He was told to serve out the rest of the final four years in prison if he re-offended in that time.

Kirk was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for life and banned from ever going within 100 metres of any school, youth club, or other gathering place for young people.

He is also prohibited from working with organisations connected to children and coming into contact with anyone under the age of 16.

Detective Inspector Shaun Page, of North Yorkshire Police, said: “Phillip Kirk is one of the most dangerous individuals I am aware of, and I welcome the sentence at court today that will keep children safe.”

Prosecutor Miss Addy said Kirk hid a USB stick from police on which he had illegal pictures of children and did a factory reset of the laptop he did tell police he had.

David Camidge, for Kirk, told the court his client had made a “cry for help” to probation officers shortly before his arrest, adding he had had a troubled childhood and had been diagnosed as possibly having an “autistic spectrum disorder”.