'Abhorrent, calculated... manipulative': The man dubbed a 'significant danger to teenage girls online'

An 'abhorrent and manipulative' paedophile described as a 'significant danger to teenage girls online' has been jailed for 14 years for a string of child sex offences. Kyle Lees, 21, was brought to justice after a huge international police operation to bring down an online chatroom used by paedophiles on the dark-web to exchange extreme images and plot how to abuse children.

Lees, of Tameside, was sentenced at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Friday after admitting a total of 35 offences – including making indecent images of a child; possessing extreme pornography; blackmail; and causing child pornography, GMP said. He was arrested at his home in June 2021 after he was believed to be behind one of the user accounts on the site.

During a 10 month-long investigation, officers from GMP's Online Child Abuse Investigation Team found he had created several fake online male and female profiles to contact his victims, who were all girls aged between 14 and 16. Analysis of his online accounts revealed he had attempted to contact around 3,500 profiles on several social media and chat room sites.

Read more: Two women arrested over death of baby girl after 'medical episode' at nursery

Police say Lees would 'prey on vulnerabilities' by obtaining material from victims then use it as blackmail to get more; threatening them by saying he would release the pictures to his family or on the internet. Some victims were coerced into sexual activity with animals, which Lees would ask for content of for his own sexual gratification.

Most of Lees' victims were from the United States, which he would target because the time difference meant his victims would be awake while he was online during the night in the UK. The victims also