AN illegal immigrant who pretended he was a Justin Bieber lookalike to sexually assault a six-year-old girl and lure teenagers into sending him explicit pictures has been jailed.

Yohann Ramchelawon hid his identity behind a photograph of a teenage boy he grabbed from the internet to groom his victims using bogus profiles on social media sites. The Mauritian used Instagram, WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook to spark conversations with girls aged between 12 and 17 from across the world – including one victim from Shoreham.

Before long he was requesting naked images of the children, while using a profile picture of a boy aged around 16 who police said “can only be described as looking like a young Justin Bieber”.

The 30-year-old also coerced them into performing sex acts on webcam and threatened to share the images with friends and family if they did not meet his demands.

Ramchelawon, who was on bail for similar offences at the time, was caught after West Midlands Police tracked the phone he used to message a 12-year-old girl from Manchester to a house in Walsall where he was living.

Detectives eventually tracked him down and arrested him at a house in Huddersfield in March.

Hundreds of indecent images were found in his possession and officers discovered there were victims from Shoreham, Coventry, Walsall, Lanark in Scotland, Liverpool, St Ives and East Ham, Stafford Crown Court heard.

Examination of his computer and phone revealed he had contacted girls living in New Zealand, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Ramchelawon, of Walls Street, Halifax, initially denied two counts of inciting a 12-year-old girl to engage in sex acts online, eight charges of possessing indecent images of children, two of distributing the images and two of sexual assault.

Midway through his trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court he admitted all the offences and was jailed for 15 years.

Judge John Wait said: “I’m satisfied from your conduct that you have a perverted sexual attraction to very young girls. The consequence of your conduct has been awful and you present a significant risk of serious harm of further offending unless restrained. You are a dangerous offender.”

Background

YOHANN Ramchelawon used aliases including Ryan Smith and Santiago, claiming to be a teenager who was sending messages during class.

Detective Constable Kerry Haywood, of West Midlands Police’s public protection unit, said he sent poems, would call victims "baby" and tell them he loved them after chatting online for little more than a day.

Soon he was persuading them to take their clothes off and used the naked pictures as blackmail to get them to send more explicit pictures and videos.

C Haywood thanked the 12-year-old Manchester victim who reported him for "putting her faith in the police" and helping them to catch a "calculating sex predator".

He must serve a minimum of 10 years behind bars and was put on the sexual offenders' register for life.