A PROLIFIC sex offender has been jailed for 11 years after one of his victims spotted him in the street and identified him on Facebook.

Police set up an operation to catch David Hedley, 20, after a series of attacks on lone women and girls in the West End of Newcastle over a period of years.

After he was arrested Hedley told probation officers he had been exposing himself to women since he was 11.

Forensics experts had preserved evidence from the scene of some of his attacks, but he was not on any DNA database.

Gavin Doig, prosecuting, told Newcastle Crown Court that a teenager he had attacked as she walked over a bridge in November last year spotted Hedley in the street.

She told police and then managed to identify him on Facebook, Mr Doig said.

He was arrested in March and later admitted two counts of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child, two counts of sexual assault, sexual assault on a child under 13, exposure and his most serious offence, attempted rape.

Hedley, from Cornhill, East Denton, Newcastle, was jailed for 11 years, with an additional five years on licence, as well as being put on the Sex Offenders' Register and given a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, both indefinitely.