A 39-year-old Upper Brynaman man posed as a teenager on Facebook to lure schoolgirls into sending him indecent images of themselves, magistrates have been told.

David John Keith Evans, of Escairynys, created a fake account on the social media website where he pretended to be a 13-year-old schoolboy.

Evans used the account to contact young girls and encourage them to send him naked and semi-naked selfies.

Llanelli magistrates court was told how Evans also entered into “sexually explicit” chats with girls as young as 13 before asking them for pictures.

His grooming of the girls came to light during an international sting operation initiated in the United States of America where investigators were carrying out an operation to identify paedophiles using the web to exploit children.

Prosecutor Ellie Morgan told magistrates: “He was posing as a 13-year-old male and conducting explicit chats with young girls.

“He had photographs of females, some mature, some teenagers, some aged under 16, some topless, some completely naked.”

At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard Jones described how Evans had been indentified 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.

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

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

In interview, he told police he was aware that 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.

He admitted making 16 indecent images of children.

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.

Magistrates told Evans his crimes were so serious their sentencing powers would prove inadequate.

Evans will appear before Swansea Crown Court for sentencing on December 19.