A MAN has admitted a series of online child sex offences after being snared by a vigilante group of child sex interceptors.

Paul Bryant, 40, of Dewsgreen, Basildon, was arrested by police officers after a two-day operation by the group Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Interceptors.

CSE Interceptors is a non-profit organisation that investigates online child abuse and arranges the arrests when an offender is identified.

Bryant had been communicating with one of the interceptors’ decoys who he thought was a young boy.

A spokesman for the group said: “Once he had committed the offence, our investigators started tracing the man who at the time we only knew as Paul along with the IP address of his mobile phone.

“Our investigators worked tirelessly all day to apprehend the male along with officers from Hertfordshire police force.

“When arrested he was taken across the county into Essex to Basildon custody where he was charged and remanded.”

Bryant, who claims to be a care home manager on LinkedIn, then appeared at Basildon Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning where he admitted online child sexual grooming.

This is just one of 3,171 online grooming offences recorded since a new anti-grooming law came into force last year.

Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram were the top three most-recorded sites out of 80 different methods used.

The crime of sexual communication with a child came into force on April 3 last year followed an NSPCC campaign and in the first year, a total of 3,171 crimes were recorded by police - amounting to nine grooming offences per day.

Police revealed which methods groomers used in 2,097 instances, and records show Facebook was used in nearly 30 per cent of those cases, while Snapchat and Instagram were each used in around a fifth of cases.

Essex Police recorded 60 offences of sexual communication with a child, with 23 crimes recorded as involving Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram.

Paul Bryant was remanded into custody until his sentencing hearing on July 13 at Basildon Crown Court.