A man sent explicit pictures of himself to a social media user he thought was a 14-year-old girl before trying to meet up in Bury.

Gharat Khan started chatting online to a user on an app, whose profile showed that they was a child who was “relatively young”, Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court heard.

He sent messages to the "girl" in late summer 2018, who responded that they was 14, prosecutor Simon Blakebrough said.

As the conversation progressed, Khan, from Afghanistan, started sending sexual messages before he sent a picture of his penis.

They then exchanged messages on WhatsApp before he sent more sexually explicit messages to her, including videos.

In October that year, Khan arranged to meet up with the “girl” who said "she" was in Bury.

Ahead of meeting, he described the type of sexual activity they could do together, Mr Blakebrough said.

He arranged to meet up near an Asda supermarket but was approached by a group of people behind the decoy social media accounts, who explained they knew he was planning to meet up with a 14-year-old girl and he ran off.

Police were contacted before Khan was identified and arrested.

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He told officers that despite the messages sent to him to confirm the “girl’s” age, he “did not believe” she was telling the truth and he would have contacted the police himself if he found out she was 14.

Khan said he had “lost his phone” too.

He later pleaded guilty to attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity, two counts of attempting to cause a child to watch a sexual act and attempting sexual communication with a child.

Now aged 29, Khan was 24 at the time of the offending and was of “previous good character”.

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Defending, Nicholas Clarke said after leaving Afghanistan Khan started living across Europe, including in Belgium before he moved to Bury.

“His education has been non-existent” and he does not have a good understanding of English, Mr Clarke added.

Mr Clarke said Khan needs to be educated through a programme.

Judge Jonathan Seely accepted that the case has been “hanging over” the defendant for a long time but that Khan has showed no “remorse”.

He sentenced Khan, of Ferndown, Northwood, Middlesex, to two years and three months and ordered him to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years and made him subject to a seven-year sexual harm prevention order.