Bogus model spotter jailed

A man who posed as a model spotter to befriend schoolgirls and then offered them money for sex has been jailed for more than two years.

Lewes Crown Court heard how Trevor Hawkins, 51, approached four separate girls as they walked to school in Hastings and Eastbourne.

He gave the girls, three aged 15 and one aged 12, a fake business card and claimed he was either a photographer for Coastal Photographic or a model scout for A1 International - neither of which exist.

The court was told Hawkins got the telephone numbers of the victims and then called them on the pretence of offering them modelling work and offered them £250 for sex, which they all refused.

Gross indecency

Hawkins, of Clinch Green Avenue, Bexhill, claimed not to have known they were schoolgirls, despite them all wearing uniforms when he first spoke to them.

He admitted four counts of inciting a child under the age of 16 to commit acts of gross indecency between August 2001 and July 2002.

Judge Charles Kemp jailed Hawkins for 27 months and ordered him to sign the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

Passing sentence, Judge Kemp told him he had "taken advantage" of the girls' obvious attraction to the modelling world for his own sexual gratification.