A MAN who posed as a teenage boy and groomed two schoolgirls online has been jailed.
Patrick Lewis, 54, pretended he was a teenager to target two girls aged 13 and 14 on social networking site Teenchat.
After persuading them to pose naked, he threatened to send the photographs to social networking contacts if they refused to perform sex acts for him.
Lewis sent naked images of one girl to her friend after she rejected his demands.
When the girl discovered what he had done she told her mother.
The police managed to trace Lewis through his email address and he was brought to justice.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, making and distributing indecent movies of a child and possessing indecent images of children.
The Honorary Recorder of Hull and the East Riding, Judge Michael Mettyear, jailed Lewis for 18 months and ordered him to sign the sex offenders register for ten years.
In a victim impact statement read to Hull Crown Court, the girl's mother said: "My daughter has been magnificent through this. I am very proud of her.
"I want Lewis to know how his actions have affected our loving family. His actions have affected us in the worst possible way."
The girl's father, a soldier serving in Afghanistan when his daughter was contacted by Lewis, said: "What she has been through has horrified me.
"It has made me feel inadequate as a father and almost brought me to the edge.
"I was only able to comfort her for a month before I had to go away on another tour of duty.
"This will never go away and will always be in my mind."
When detectives seized Lewis's computer, they discovered he had preyed on another young girl.
Lewis, of Eden Rise, Willerby, was also in possession of other indecent images of young boys and girls, the youngest being a two-year-old.
His barrister Mark McKone said Lewis had been suffering from depression and was drinking four bottles of wine a day.
He said: "He was off work through depression and was spending long periods of time alone and on his computer."
Judge Mettyear also issued Lewis with a sexual offences prevention order for ten years, which bans him from working with children.
