A PAEDOPHILE who abused a 14-year-old Gwent girl after creating a false profile on a social network site has been jailed for almost four years.

Richard Foote, 25, claimed to be 16 on the site, before assaulting the teen in a cinema.

Foote also kept 97 indecent images of children on his computer, including a brutally sadistic 'level 5' video.

He gained the sympathy of the girl and her mother by pretending to have heart problems. The girl became besotted with him and complied with his sexual demands on the phone and when she met him in person, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

Jailing him for three years and 10 months, Judge Tom Crowther told him: “It has poisoned her emotional awakening and her sexual awakening, which will forever be associated with fraud.”

Police found many profiles of teenage girls who used the site on his computer, said crown prosecutor Ruth Smith. Detectives found he had already made contact with two girls aged 14 and 15 on the social networking site.

Foote, of Carrholm Drive, Leeds, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual grooming and two counts of sexual activity with a child. He also admitted 16 counts of making indecent images of a child.

Defence barrister Brian Kennedy said Foote had “dwelt in a very dark place” but understood the wrong he had done and had vowed to try to turn his life around.

Judge Crowther jailed Foote for 16 months for each count of grooming, two and half years for one charge of sexual activity with a child and 40 months for the second, to run concurrently.

He received six months for each of the 16 charges of making indecent images, to run concurrently. The 40-month sentence will run consecutively, making 46 months. He will serve half before being released on licence. Judge Crowther also imposed an order, stopping him from having unsupervised contact with under-16s for the rest of his life.