A "BULLYING" pervert who assumed different identities to groom young girls through Facebook has been jailed.

Hayden Prior initially posed as a 19-year-old girl to target his first victim, a teenager whose father had died just months before.

After messaging each other online, Prior, 20, asked the victim to video herself performing a sex act.

She eventually agreed to send images of herself topless and naked from the waist down.

The defendant then sent the girl a series of graphic images, including a photograph of extreme porn involving an animal.

He also asked the victim to send footage of herself involved in sexual activity with friends.

When the girl didn't immediately respond, Prior - still posing as a young woman - messaged to say he would harm himself if she failed to send the video.

He then ceased all contact, leading the victim to believe he'd carried out the threat.

The victim, who had confided in Prior about the death of her father and a history of being bullied, told police that the interest from what she believed was an older girl made her "feel loved".

"I felt like I needed to be loved," she said.

Prior, of Lake Road in Verwood, then used a different name and a photograph found online to pose as a young man called James.

He sent a friend request to a 12-year-old girl and began messaging her online.

He persuaded her to video herself undressing "like a striptease" before asking her to record a second, similar video.

However, the victim then told her father, and police were called.

The final victim, a 14-year-old, was identified after teachers at her school heard she was in love with an older boy called James.

Police found Prior - once again using a false identity on Facebook - had been messaging the girl for around two months.

In December last year, he asked the victim to take off her jeans and bra.

When she told him that she wasn't ready, Prior warned her: "Don't take long, I can't wait."

He then said: "If you love me, you'll show me.

"We can just stop seeing each other."

Prior admitted seven counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and three of causing a child to watch sexual activity.

He appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday, October 7 to be sentenced.

Mitigating, Brian Sharman said: "What one has here is an inadequate young man who cannot make any friends, who has the urges that young men have.

"In the world of today, he can sit in his bedroom staring at a screen, and in a sense that is an unreal situation to drift into.

"In fact, it's unreal from both points of view. The young ladies - girls - in question form an attachment to someone they have not physically met."

Sentencing Prior to 16 months in a young offender institution, Judge Brian Forster called the defendant's behaviour "bullying" and "deceitful".

"I stress to you that there are real victims to your offending," he said.

"The victims may in a sense be unknown persons over the internet, but they are young people who exist and will have suffered as a result of your offending."

Prior will be the subject of a sexual harm prevention order indefinitely.

He must also report as a sex offender for a decade.