A LONER pretended to be a woman on social media to befriend children and got one of them to perform sex acts and send him pictures.

David Groom's perverted behaviour came to light when he asked a taxi driver to take him past a school so he could watch its pupils.

He also showed the cabbie a photograph of what he said was a 12-year-old girl on his mobile phone, Teesside Crown Court was told.

The driver alerted police and they found sick images on his computer when they searched his then home in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Officers discovered the 28-year-old had been using the name Rosie Smith on Facebook, Hotmail and WhatsApp to communicate with youngsters.

Groom - who later admitted to a probation official that he had hoped to meet a child for sex - was jailed for five years and four months.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and ten of making indecent images of children.

Judge Howard Crowson told him: "You, perhaps, should be grateful to the taxi driver who was public-spirited enough to alert the police.

"He was concerned that you were quite prepared to reveal to him your interest in children . . . it is a matter of some concern."

Amrit Jandoo, mitigating, said Groom had "a hermit-like existence" and said the creation of the social networking profile was "fantasy".

"He has had very little contact with the normal avenues of the world and meeting people in the usual way," said Mr Jandoo yesterday (Monday, October 5).

"He has had difficulties dealing with his sexuality and his attention towards younger people. He has a limited social network."

Groom, of Corporation Road, Darlington, was said to suffer from learning difficulties - but the judge was scathing in his assessment.

Judge Crowson said: "The way you approached this demonstrates you are perfectly capable of overcoming that difficulty if you want.

"By your grooming and your persistence, you managed to persuade her to do things which are now a source of great embarrassment to her.

"You went to the trouble of setting up social media sites in the name of a woman, clearly with the intention of trying to deceive."

Groom will also be on the sex offenders' register for life, and is banned from having unsupervised contact with under-16s.