A BRIERLEY Hill road worker who tried to entice four frightened schoolgirls to get into his car for sex has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Shawn Jones complimented and blew kisses to the girls - who were all aged 12 to 14 - before his comments became more sinister and he left his victims in a state of "significant" distress.

The father-of-three first targeted a young girl in Kates Hill, before approaching another girl in Cradley.

He then set his sights on two girls sat in a parked car at the Merry Hill shopping centre.

"You took opportunities when you encountered girls who were alone," Judge John Wait told the 45-year-old.

"You made grossly inappropriate sexualised comments causing great distress."

The judge said all the girls had been badly affected by his actions and two of them had to receive counselling to help them get over their ordeal.

"Your offending was repeated when the opportunity arose," he told Jones at Wolverhampton Crown Court, adding that it was a "course of conduct" but it was clear Jones had made no attempts to get out of his BMW.

Jones, of Norwood Road, had denied four charges of attempting to abduct a girl under 16 years of age with the intention of committing a sexual offence.

But he was found guilty of all the offences on unanimous verdicts after the jury retired to consider the evidence at the end of his trial.

Simon Phillips, prosecuting, had told the jury that Jones was seeking to take away the girls and detain them so he could commit some sort of sexual offence adding: "At the very least he wanted to abduct them for an unknown purpose."

But in evidence to the panel, Jones maintained he had not been in the area when the first two girls were approached although he said he had been parked at the Merry Hill centre.

He said the two girls had been looking at him and giggling and he had simply said "What?" before driving away from the scene.

Elizabeth Power, defending, stressed the offences were of a short duration and references produced to the court painted a picture of a man who was "loyal and dependable" to his friends and family.

The court was told that Jones had a number of previous convictions for offences including violence, criminal damage and drugs but there was no other sexual offending on his record.

The judge made Jones the subject of an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order to help curb the possibility of future offending and told him he would have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.