A BRYNAMAN man who pretended to be a schoolboy to contact young girls via the internet has today escaped a jail sentence.

David John Keith Evans, aged 39, tricked girls into sending him photographs of themselves naked and semi naked.

Evans of Escairynys created a fake account on Facebook where he pretended to be a 13-year-old boy to engage in "sexually" explicit" conversations with girls as young as 13.

Swansea crown court heard that the grooming of the girls came to light after a worldwide sting operation initiated in the United States of America were carrying out an operation to identify paedophiles using the web to exploit children.

After his arrest Evans was found to have photographs of females, some mature, some teenagers, some aged under 16, some topless and some completely naked.

A total of 690 pornographic images of children and women aged between five and 65 were discovered on computers and devices, along with records of sexually explicit conversations Evans had held with young girls.

Officers discovered “16 inappropriate images” on Evans’ computer.

During a police interview, Evans agreed some of the girls he had spoken to looked “a touch young”.

“I know I shouldn’t have them, but I just like them,” Evans said of the pictures.

At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard Jones described how Evans had been identified following a global policing operation which saw investigators tracing the accounts of individuals who had visited suspect websites.

“This case came to light because of an international search started in North America which led to this gentleman’s email address being discovered,” said Mr Pritchard Jones.

Dyfed-Powys Police officers following up information for the trans-Atlantic investigation swooped on Evans’ home, confiscating computers and mobile phones.

He admitted making 16 indecent images of children, which were found on a computer.

The charge of “making indecent images” relates to the downloading and viewing of pictures from the internet.

He denied he used the internet to actively search for indecent images of children.

Evans was made the subject of a 36 month community order, the maximum length of order available to the court. He was also ordered to attend a sexual offences programme and to register with the police as a sex offender for the next five years.

Evans was also banned from accessing the internet for five years.