Dean Yates, of Oxford Road, Reading, was sentenced at Reading Crown Court on Monday (July 31) to nine charges:

• Making an indecent photograph of a child,

• Two counts of sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl,

• Two counts of assault on a female,

• Two counts of causing/inciting a 15-year-old girl into sexual activity,

• Two counts of causing a female to engage in sexual activity

Judge Emma Nott sentenced the 34-year-old to a 20-year extended sentence with a 15-year custodial sentence due to the seriousness of the offences.

The incidents happened in 2019 when Yates was about 30 years old. The court heard that Yates would hack into young girls’ social media accounts to obtain private photographs of them to blackmail them into sending more.

He would pretend to be younger than he was when speaking to the girls online – using his real name and an alias.

The first set of charges relate to a girl aged 13, Yates had hacked into a 15-year-old boy’s account and pretended to be him to persuade the girl to send him private photographs.

He then blackmailed the girl using the original photographs, forcing her to send more.

Speaking to the police, the girl said: “I sent him a picture because I thought it would make him go away.

“Then he messaged saying if I didn’t send him more he was going to send the picture to my mum and dad and put it on social media.

“So I sent him a few more photos. He said he would send them to my friends and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to send him more as I thought it would get worse.”

The 15-year-old boy whose account it actually was ended up being arrested and interviewed by police before it transpired that he had been hacked.

Following this, Yates was arrested and a second girl was interviewed about her interactions with the defendant.

She revealed that Yates had hacked her account and obtained her private photographs and blackmailed her using an alias.

He then forced her to meet up with him and engage in sexual activity while pretending that he too was being blackmailed by ‘the alias’ account.

In a victim impact statement read out to the court, the 15-year-old girl said she feels ‘fear and distress’ when thinking about Yates and said she was ‘too young’ to deal with things at the time.

Yates will also be made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO).