An ashamed 36-year-old Stow-on-the-Wold businessman has asked a judge to 'throw the book at him' for trying to rape a young girl and committing a series of other sex offences against her.

The man, who cannot be named by court order, is disgusted with himself and wants to pay the full price for his actions, his lawyer told Bristol Crown Court on Monday.

He pleaded guilty at yesterday's hearing to attempting to rape the girl, aged between nine and 11, as she slept.

At an earlier hearing at Gloucester crown court the man had already admitted two charges of sexual assault of the girl between April 2017 and June last year.

He further pleaded guilty to four charges of taking indecent images of a child between the same dates and three of distributing some of the images.

At the start of yesterday's two hour hearing at Bristol, Judge Michael Cullum viewed a video that the man had taken of himself committing the act of attempted rape.

Defence barrister Anjali Gohol had challenged whether what was shown on the disturbing video could be legally defined as an attempted rape by the defendant.

Having viewed the video and heard legal arguments from the lawyers on both sides, the judge rejected Ms Gohil's submission that the charge should be dismissed because it did not show or prove that there was a rape attempt made by the man.

After the judge had made his ruling that the charge should stand, the defendant pleaded guilty to it and Ms Gohil said “The defendant’s position is that he wants the court to throw the legal book at him.

“He is appalled that what he did is absolutely disgusting."

“He is a man who has become sexually attracted to young girls. "

The judge had cleared the court of everyone except the lawyers to view the video.

Folowing the judge's ruling the businessman, wearing a light blue shirt and standing in a secured dock, immediately pleaded guilty to the attempted rape of a child under the age of 13 between April 27, 2017 and June 27, 2019.

Judge Cullum told the defendant “Your sentence is going to be a lengthy period in prison, which starts now by me remanding you into custody until your sentence hearing on July 20.”