Man used lookalike to lure girls online

A 30-YEAR-OLD man who posed as a young Justin Bieber lookalike online to lure schoolgirls into sending him indecent webcam images has been jailed for 15 years.

Yohann Ramchelawon used a photo of a teenage boy he grabbed from the internet to create bogus social media profiles before grooming youngsters, West Midlands Police said. Ramchelawon, who was arrested at an address in Victoria Lane, Huddersfield, on March 6, used Instagram, WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook to target girls aged between 12 and 17.

Some of his victims were also coerced into performing sex acts in front of webcams after Mauritius-born Ramchelawon threatened to share the images they had provided with friends and family.

In a statement issued after Ramchelawon was sentenced at Stafford Crown Court, West Midlands Police said officers picked up the inquiry after an IP address used to send a message a 12-yearold Manchester girl was traced to a house in Walsall.

Hundreds of indecent images were found on his digital devices as officers uncovered victims from Coventry and Walsall in the Midlands, plus Lanark in Scotland, Liverpool, St Ives, Shoreham-by-sea and East Ham in London.

Ramchelawon – who gave his home address as Halifax, when arrested – was convicted of two counts of inciting a 12-year-old girl to engage in sex acts online, eight of possessing indecent images of children and two of distributing the images.

Detective Constable Kerry Haywood praised the girls for giving evidence.