A PERVERT who trawled the social-media website Facebook grooming young teenage girls for sexual purposes has been jailed for four years.

Liam Goulding, 20, of King Street, Bacup, told the youngsters he wanted to marry them and make them pregnant before threatening to kill himself if they did not go along with his wishes.

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Preston Crown Court heard disturbing details of a ‘relationship’ with a girl of just 13, when Goulding was 18, in which he urged her to send explicit photographs of herself, and pressured her into sexual activity at his house while his parents were away.

On one occasion, as the pair walked in Whittaker Park, Burnley, Goulding took the girl’s mobile phone away from her, telling her ‘when we are married it will be mine anyway’.

He also pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a child after offences he committed against her that day.

But the court heard the young teenager was not the first girl Goulding had made unwanted sexual advances towards.

A 16-year-old girl told police he had pushed her against a wall and sexually assaulted her in public and an 11-year-old girl complained he persistently asked her for private photographs of herself.

A fourth girl, 13, said she had been befriended by Goulding on Facebook and had chatted to him on Skype.

But when it seemed she did not want a relationship Goulding would throw a tantrum and send messages such as: “I try to give you a good life and you throw it back in my face. I give up.

“I’ll make sure you never see me again because I will be dead.”

Judge Andrew Woolman, sentencing, said he accepted that in this case Goulding was a vulnerable young man whose emotional maturity did not match his chronological age.

But he said: “Even a boy of 16 knows it is wrong to engage in sexual activity with a 13-year-old.”

He ordered Goulding to spend four years in a young offender institution.