Morris Lightfoot, 55, was deputy Mayor of the town at the time of the offences and pleaded guilty to three charges of attempting to incite a 13 year old girl to engage in sexual activity when he appeared before Magistrates in York.

He resigned from his civic position when details of the offending, where he believed he was asking a 13 year old if she wanted to have sex with him, became known.

However, the court was told that Lightfoot, a Liberal Democrat who represents Bilton on Harrogate Council and Bilton and Nidd Gorge on North Yorkshire County Council, had been caught in a trap.

Prosecutor Alison Whiteley said the male administrator of the social networking site Lightfoot had logged on to, using the name Moozzaa, had become suspicious of him and had posed as a 13-year-old girl.

Mrs Whiteley said Lightfoot had used a computer at his then home in Bachelor Gardens, Harrogate, to chat with the girl on three different dates in August last year. E-mail conversations between Lightfoot and the girl had become sexual in tone.

Lightfoot had asked the girl - who had made it clear she was 13 - if she wanted to lose her virginity. The response had been: ''I am 13, if that is OK with you. I am worried I am too young.'' Lightfoot had replied in explicit terms.

Mrs Whiteley said at one point Lightfoot had suggested a meeting with the girl in Harrogate and had sent her images of himself in a state of undress, though none had been deemed indecent.

In November, when police arrested Lightfoot, who now lives in Dryden Close, Bilton, he tried to suggest the girl was at fault because she was too young to use the site.

Mrs Whiteley, who suggested he should be sent to York Crown Court for sentence, said it was the Crown's view that Lightfoot's attempts to engage a girl in sexual activity amounted to grooming. ''It is just a case of good fortune that no meeting took place.''

Defence solicitor Geoffrey Rogers contended magistrates' powers were sufficient. There had been no girl - instead Lightfoot, a married man with two sons, had been the victim of a sting. "The site administrator was the 13-year-old girl."

Mr Rogers said it had become apparent to Lightfoot in his council work that youths in Bilton were engaged in drink-fuelled crime.

Little progress was being made by the police and other authorities, so he decided to engage with local young people to find out what they were doing and where they were getting the drink.

He began to log onto social networking sites. While his initial activities were totally innocent, for reasons he could not explain, he had made sexual references. "He is adamant he has no sexual interest in young girls and never has had," said Mr Rogers.

Lightfoot was bailed until October 31 and told probation reports would be compiled covering all sentencing options, including referral to York Crown Court if magistrates' maximum penalty of 12 months in prison was deemed insufficient.

He was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register.