World's worst net pervert

The world's most serious and prolific internet groomer of young girls was jailed for just five years today.

Paedophile Douglas Lindsell, 64, posed as a child in internet chatrooms to befriend teenage girls before luring them into meetings to molest them.

The father of two from Twickenham contacted 72 young girls - 54 in Britain and 18 in Europe, the Far East, Africa and America. He used the internet on his personal computer and interactive cable TV to access the chatrooms.

Having established contact with his unwitting victims he would bombard them with text messages and emails to set up meetings.

Outside court, a police spokesman said: "This is the most serious and prolific internet groomer of young children to be arrested worldwide."

He was arrested after he sent a photograph of himself naked with his face clearly shown to a young girl in Manchester. The photograph was forwarded to the police, who found that Lindsell had written his address on the back.

At his home detectives found he had 22 handwritten profiles of young girls and his computer was full of downloaded paedophile images.

After his arrest Lindsell tried to contact many of his victims, ordering them to delete texts and emails he had sent them.

Police are unable to say exactly how many victims Lindsell had contacted in his 18-month campaign and today appealed to youngsters who may have been in contact with him to come forward.

Lindsell was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court today. He pleaded guilty to attempted abduction of a girl under 14, gross indecency with a girl under 16, making indecent images of children, two charges of sexual and threatening harassment of a girl of eight and attempting to pervert the course of justice.