AN ex-policing student with a fetish for boys in white socks avoided jail after grooming another underage teen.

Ex-UCLan undergraduate Kristian Kirk also asked a boy, 15, in Wales for nude pictures, after asking to join a teenage Snapchat conversation, Burnley Crown Court was told.

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Kirk, 25, formerly of Oswaldtwistle but now living in Nelson, was first exposed by paedophile hunter Stinson Hunter, who had posed as a 14-year-old to lure him into sexual banter and then reported him to police. Even after his arrest for that though, the following November Kirk was asking to be made a member of an online group called Teenage Snapchat, the court heard.

Prosecutor David Clark said: “The boy said that this man seemed weird, asking him if he could send snaps of himself with white socks on, as he had a fetish for white socks.”

The boy, who had informed Kirk, pictured, he was only 15, did send him a picture of his face and feet. But he refused to post naked pictures of himself, when asked, and immediately told his grandmother about what had happened.

Later the boy checked his Facebook account and found there had been repeated attempts to become Kirk’s friend on the social-media site, which he also ignored.

Investigations by police in Lancashire and Wales overlapped. Kirk was brought before Burnley Crown Court last June and was given a three-year community order, including attendance on a sex offenders’ treatment programme, after admitting to a grooming charge for the allegation by Mr Hunter.

Daniel Prowse, defending, said his client had made good progress on the offending programme and should continue to be helped.

Passing sentence, Judge Simon Newell said Kirk’s first arrest, after his involvement with Mr Hunter in August 2014, did not appear to have had any effect on his conduct.

The judge said: “It appears that as the (sex offenders’ treatment) programme progresses, you are co-operating, and there has never been any suggestion of any offending in the past 12 months.”

Kirk, after admitting to inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, was given a 26-week prison sentence, suspended for two years. He will remain under probation supervision for two years. A sexual harm prevention order was also imposed, limiting his contact with youngsters.