A paedophile who bragged to a friend that he had picked up a young boy in a park and was “going to have some fun with him” in his car has been locked up for 12 months.

Carl Fisher sent a text message to the man inviting him to come along and then sent him a picture of a naked boy, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

The man was so concerned he contacted the police and officers went to Fisher’s home in Highfield Road, Ipswich, and arrested him, said David Wilson, prosecuting.

His mobile phone was seized and when it was analysed, it was found to contain 300 indecent images of children and four movies.

Mr Wilson said that on a scale of one to five, with level five being the most serious, 296 of the images were at level one and four were at level three, while three of the movies were at level two and one was at level three.

When Fisher was interviewed about the images he answered no comment to questions.

The court heard that in 2000 Fisher was jailed for two years for two indecent assaults on boys aged 14 and 15 and an offence of buggery, and in 2009 he had appeared before another court for an offence of sexual assault on a male.

Fisher, 43, admitted one offence of making indecent images of children.

Jailing him for 12 months and making him the subject of an indefinite sexual offences prevention order, Judge John Holt told Fisher that a pre-sentence report had assessed him as being at “high to very high” risk of sexual reoffending.

“I am satisfied I would be failing in my public duty if I didn’t pass an immediate sentence of imprisonment,” said the judge.

Craig Marchant, for Fisher, said his client had not taken the picture of the boy which triggered the investigation and he had sent it to his friend as “ a wind-up”.

He said Fisher had downloaded the images found on his phone from the internet and hadn’t been in the presence of any of the children when the pictures were taken.

Mr Marchant said Fisher was normally in work but was currently unemployed.