A SEX offender who stole a schoolgirl’s identity and used it to pose as a child online has been jailed.

Andrew Keith Bulmer, 35, used pictures from Facebook in his masquerade during which he sent an obscene film of a second child and engaged in sexual talk and fantasies with other men, said Anthony Moore, prosecuting.

He also received indecent images of children from the other men.

Defence barrister Victoria Smith-Swain said Bulmer was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder following his acquittal at trial of raping a woman in 2014. She said he committed his crimes to make friends rather than for sexual motives.

But Judge Andrew Stubbs QC said Bulmer was doing it for his own sexual gratification.

“I take into account the serious effect it has had upon her (the girl whose identity was stolen),” he said. “Her mother has quite rightly said this is not a victimless crime.”

Bulmer, of Milan House, Eboracum Way, York, pleaded guilty to an offence involving an indecent video of a child, possessing five extreme images of children and publishing obscene material by sending a film of a child subjected to an extreme sexual act, and was jailed for 30 months.

In 2012, he was given a 12-month suspended prison sentence for sexually assaulting a woman.

Last month, a York jury acquitted Bulmer of sexually assaulting another woman. He was barred from contacting her in any way under a ten-year sexual harm prevention order that also controls his access to the internet.

Bulmer was put on the sex offenders register for the second time.

Mr Moore said men contacted by Bulmer had been charged with offences relating to grooming a child for sexual activities. Bulmer had pretended he was an underage girl looking for sex.

Ms Smith-Swain said Bulmer was remorseful and his libido had reduced because of the medication he was taking for anti-depression.

He had also got engaged on Christmas Day.

“I am instructed things are going well in the relationship,” she said.

An NSPCC spokesman said after the hearing: “Bulmer’s actions in distributing images of an underage girl and posing as a child online are deeply disturbing.”

He added: “For every indecent image of a young person online a child has been abused in the real world and every time someone like Bulmer clicks on this material the demand for more children to be abused increases.

“The NSPCC is calling on tech companies, government and law enforcement to target this growing problem at source by preventing this content from being published online in the first place.”