Paedophile posed as teenage lesbian to groom schoolgirl into sending sexually explicit images

Poyser swapped 483 instant messages with a 14-year-old schoolgirl who was bullied for being gay

Charles Poyser, 48, has been sentenced to nine years in jail and will remain on licence until 2029 (Greater Manchester Police)

A serial sex-offender posed as a teenage lesbian to groom a 14-year-old schoolgirl into sending him sexually explicit images, a court has heard.

Charles Poyser, who has a 25-year history of sex crimes, convinced the teenage girl she was in a relationship with a young man over the course of hundreds of online messages.

The 48-year-old has now been handed a jail sentence of nine years at Manchester Crown Court.

His attempts to groom the girl were discovered when police raided his home in July last year, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Prosecutor Richard Orme told the court Poyser had been given an indefinite sexual offences prevention order in 2012, which banned him from unsupervised contact with youngsters and allowed police to check on his internet use at any time.

Two months after police seized a mobile phone from Poyser's address, he was found to have hidden a new smartphone in the floorboards behind the toilet.

Police also seized memory cards, a laptop and a webcam from the address, where Poyser lived with another convicted sex offender.

Officers discovered he had swapped 483 instant messages with a 14-year-old schoolgirl who was bullied for being gay.

The girl had made it clear in the messages she was 14 and Poyser described himself as a "grown up," but suggested he was close to her age by referring to his "dad's Facebook account".

Poyser also sent her indecent images of a woman, which he claimed were of him, in attempts to encourage her to send him sexually explicit images and perform a sex act.

He was also found to have hoarded nearly 2,500 indecent images of children, aged as young as five, between May and June last year.

When interviewed by police, he reportedly claimed his online activity was better than finding a "physical victim".

Poyser pleaded guilty to offences of making indecent images of children, possessing a prohibited image of a child, distributing indecent photographs of children, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and breaching a sexual offences prevention order.

He has been sentenced to nine years in jail and will remain on licence until 2029.