A PERVERT who thought he was sending sexual pictures to a 13-year-old girl was caught out by an American online investigation.

Gary Bradley, 53, used an instant messaging service called Kik to send the explicit messages and pictures, a court heard.

He thought he was chatting to a 13-year-old girl, but was, in fact, in conversation with an undercover officer.

Appearing at Colchester Magistrates Court yesterday, Bradley, of Chaney Road, Wivenhoe, admitted one charge of attempting to cause a child aged 13 to 15 to look at an image of sexual activity.

Philip Pearson, prosecuting, said: “The police received information from the United States from investigators carrying out an investigation in 2016. They were using an undercover officer.

“He created an online profile purporting to be a 13-year-old girl using a social network platform called Kik.

“The officer had used the false profile to have a conversation with a user who said he was a 50-year-old man from the UK.

“The man engaged who he thought was a 13-year-old in sexual conversation.

“He sent explicit images of himself and also encouraged her to send images back to him.

"He has admitted he has sent these images to this person over the system."

Joanna Hardy, mitigating, said Bradley is a man of previous good character who entered an early guilty plea.

Bradley is expected to be sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court next month.

Kik Messenger had around 300 million registered users as of May 2016.

The service has been criticised as unsafe for children due to its emphasis on protecting the anonymity of its users and a lack of parental control.