An Eltham football referee has been jailed today (Dec 18) after posing as a 13-year-old girl on the internet and tricking teenage boys into performing sex acts.

George Taylor, 21, has refereed football games across the Kent area including games in Bromley, Erith, Belvedere and Welling.

He was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court to two years in prison for 10 counts of making indecent photos of children and 12 of inciting or attempting to incite sexual activity of a child. He pleaded guilty to all the charges.

When police seized the Congreve Road resident's computer on March 20 they discovered 352 indecent images of children with 10 of the most serious level of child porn.

Prosecutor Gregor McKinley said: “He pretended to be a 13-year-old girl called Holly Phillips or Leah Higgins. He was promising to send naked pictures of himself, as a 13-year-old girl, and asking them to send naked pictures of themselves.

“Or he asked them to perform an act of masturbation during the chat. A number of the boys came from the same school.

“There is some indication he infiltrated the network between the boys in the school.

“All the boys declined to give a victim impact statement. They felt upset and embarrassed and they didn’t want to reduce this in writing.”

The court was told Taylor “made a full and frank confession” when he was arrested.

Shakeel Jamil, mitigating, said: “There is no doubt these are serious offences but they are also very complex.

“When he was 14 the same thing happened to him. He was also abused.

“He is so young, there isn’t funding for many of the treatment courses at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (a child protection charity) and so he has spent his 21st birthday money on it instead.”

The court heard how Taylor had enjoyed a full-time job and helped care for his elderly mother with arthritis. After his arrest he was prescribed anti-depressants and sleeping pills and sent to the Bracton Centre mental health facility in Dartford.

Judge Paul Lawton said: “I think the court can understand how the boys felt when they realised what had taken place.

“Before March 20 this year to the world you were a normal young man. Then the Devon and Cornwall Police seized your computer and on it was a catalogue of sexual depravity.”

A father of one of the boys who Taylor approached spoke to News Shopper after the sentencing.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “He’s a scumbag.

“I felt physically sick when I found out. I found out in August when the police sent me a letter and have punished myself over the last four months trying to work out who it was.

“This man had approached my 13-year-old son on Facebook, in January, pretending to be a girl called Leah. They started chatting on Facebook and then on Skype.

“My son couldn’t see his face though and he realised and said, ‘you’re a nonce, you’re blocked’ and deleted him. Then the man approached my other 16-year-old son and said, ‘can you get your brother to unblock me?’

“Two weeks after my son blocked him, Taylor refereed him in a game.

“I thought the sentencing was all a load of shambles - two years isn’t long enough.”