A MAN who used an element of blackmail to threaten an underage girl into sending him intimate pictures of herself has failed in his bid to cut his sentence.

Jordan Knight was jailed for two years and four months at Durham Crown Court in July, after admitting two counts of causing or inciting a girl under 16 to engage in sexual activity and one of distributing indecent images of a child.

The court was told he threatened the 13-year-old girl with gang-rape unless she sent him more intimate pictures of herself, having already persuaded her to send him five naked images.

But when his further requests, in online social media chats and over the phone, were refused.

The court was told he screenshot the images and sent them back, threatening to post them on social media, and send them to her friends and family, unless she walked to a local shop topless.

He said he and his friends would gang rape her if she did not comply.

Knight also said they would sell her for prostitution, and then threatened to self-harm if she went to police.

But, the girl did go to the police and Knight was arrested and interviewed, accepting he had received the images from the girl and made sexualised comments.

Miss Waugh said the girl refused his demands, claiming she was not interested in him as she was a lesbian.

She eventually informed her older sister and a complaint was made over Knight’s activities.

Laurie Scott, mitigating, told the court this girl lived in Wales, and another Knight was in communication with, was also “some distance away”.

She said Knight, now 22, of Stavordale Street, Seaham, was unlikely to act on his threats.

Accepting they were, “unpleasant, if idle threats,” Miss Scott described Knight as, “an immature young man with no more intention than engaging in sexual chat and receiving some sexual images.”

Apart from the custodial sentence, he was also made subject of sex offender registration and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order, both for ten years.

Miss Scott confirmed a bid to have the July sentence cut was rejected by Appeal Court judges, last week, who said while some aggravating features were not present, blackmail, was, “a particularly grave and chilling feature of the case.”

Dismissing Knight’s appeal, they added that the sentence was, “fair, just and proportionate”.