A former Freemason took a nude picture of his late wife and Haribo sweeties to a meeting in Swindon where he hoped to rape a 10-year-old girl.

Retired City worker Graham Turpin made the two-hour journey from his home in Essex, where he lives on a boat, to Wiltshire on June 2 after chatting with the “girl’s” mother on nudism enthusiasts’ website True Nudists.

Swindon Crown Court heard the 67-year-old grandfather had brought 22 condoms, Haribo sweets and lubricant to the meeting – as well as a camcorder with which to film the rape.

But the woman with whom he had been chatting online was not the mother of “Chloe” but an Avon and Somerset Police officer. Upon being arrested by police in Swindon, Turpin said: “I was only following her [the mother’s] orders.”

Jailing him for four years and eight months, Judge Jason Taylor QC told Turpin: “Your entire interest and purpose was the sexual abuse and rape of a 10-year-old child and I have no doubt that had she existed you would have carried out your degenerate plan.”

Prosecutor Mark Ashley said the Essex man had met the undercover officer in February 2020 on social media site True Nudists.

The officer stuck up a conversation with Turpin, who has had an almost life-long interest in naturism. He said he did not have the usual “hang-ups” that others had “as long as no one gets hurt”.

Using an alias, she claimed she had been abused by her father as a child. Her father had also sexually abused her own daughter, a 10-year-old girl called Chloe.

Turpin and the woman spoke about arranging to meet so he could abuse the child. In one message he asked: “Do you think she is ready or is she still too early?”

He sent pictures and videos showing him performing a sex act on himself – behaviour described by Judge Taylor as “classic grooming”. He asked the mother to molest the girl.

They arranged to meet somewhere public in Swindon on June 2, before going to a private house so he could molest the child and film the abuse.

Defending, Gareth James said his client was a retired City of London worker who had served as charity steward at his Freemason’s lodge, raising a substantial amount of cash for charity. Turpin, who spent more than four decades working in the City, had also raised money for St Clare’s Hospice in Essex after the death of his wife.

He acknowledged it was extremely concerning that his client had travelled a considerable distance to meet the child, but said there was a certain amount of encouragement from the undercover officer.

The lawyer suggested she may have brought “thoughts into the conversation which the defendant may not have had on his own”. But he conceded: “The fact he responded in the way that he did is concerning.”

Turpin, of Quendon, Essex, pleaded guilty at the magistrates’ court in June to arranging the commission of a child sex offence.

Judge Taylor ordered he abide by a sexual harm prevention order for the rest of his life and register as a sex offender indefinitely.

He said the planning that had gone into the meeting with Chloe “doesn’t get much worse. “This wasn’t merely fantasy. You came equipped with two vibrators, lubricant, 22 condoms, massage oil, a camera, a tripod and a laptop, cash and sweets that you believed this 10-year-old girl liked.”