A SEX fiend who posed as a 16-year-old to prey on girls has been jailed for six years as a judge branded him an "internet predator".

Kurtis Randall tricked one victim into sending him nude pictures, then later blackmailed her into carrying out depraved acts on camera.

Randall put the images online, and invited people to get in touch with the girl, a court heard.

He also sent them to her friends, ex-boyfriend and classmates as well as "random people", prosecutor Shaun Dodds told Teesside Crown Court.

The teenager said: "I wish I had never met Kurtis. I despise him."

She said she became interested in Randall, from Middlesbrough, when he was using a fake photograph and a fake personality as a young teen.

She said he “seemed like an amazing person” as they chatted online, saying "he had a hold over me" until he confessed his true identity.

Just four days after being charged with a string of offences and bailed, Randall, then 21, was targeting other youngsters on social media.

Using another fake persona, he contacted an underage girl on social media, made sexual suggestions and sent a graphic video of himself.

Mr Dodds told Judge Peter Armstrong that he gave her a “price list”, including up to £500 for sex, and encouraged her to recruit others.

They met in person and he gave her £60 for sexual activity in a car park, then continued to contact her online until she blocked him.

Randall, now 22, formerly of Greenland Avenue, Whinney Banks, admitted 13 charges relating to both girls at earlier court hearings.

Andrew Stranex, mitigating, said: “He expresses real and ongoing remorse towards those that he’s affected, and recognises now that he’s impacted on others’ lives and he deeply regrets that.”

Judge Armstrong told Randall his actions had a “devastating” impact with serious psychological harm on the first victim.

He said: “She fell prey to what can only be described as you being an internet predator."

Randall also received an indefinite sexual harm prevention order banning him from contacting under-16s and restricting his internet use. He will be on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely and barred from working with children.

He admitted charges of blackmail, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, sexual activity with and in the presence of a child, causing a child to watch a sexual act, distributing and possessing indecent images of a child, meeting a child after sexual grooming and obtaining the sexual services of a child.