A PERVERT who had sex with a 12-year-old girl from Bolton after grooming her in an internet chatroom has been jailed indefinitely.

Shayne Smith, aged 27, has been told he will stay behind bars for a minimum of six years after he admitted meeting the girl in November, 2005, while using the internet.

The girl was one of three victims Smith groomed on the web.

He would travel to the Bolton girl's home before accompanying her back to his flat in Park Road, Blackpool.

Smith had sex about 15 times with the girl, who had initially told him she was 15 years old.

In just over a year, he drove to train stations in Bolton, St Helen's and Maidstone, Kent, Preston Crown Court was told.

Smith, who has no previous convictions, was sentenced to a minimum jail term of six years, minus his seven-month spell on remand.

He can only be considered for parole if it is deemed he is no longer a danger to the public.

The court heard that Smith had met the first girl, aged 15 at the time, between April and May 2005 via a chatroom.

After a short period of time, he persuaded her to let him pick her up from her home town of St Helens and go back to Blackpool where he plied her with alcohol and had sex with her.

In June 2006, he started chatting on the web to another girl aged 14 in the Kent area.

The court heard they swapped phone numbers and he later picked her up from Maidstone train station while she was in her school uniform.

She stayed with him at his home in the seaside resort for about two weeks where they had sex and during that time her parents were unaware of where she was and feared the worst had happened, the court heard Following a police hunt, the girl was found at Smith's home address where he was arrested.

He told detectives that he thought she was 18 and that he had kept in regular contact with her family.

Sentencing Smith, Judge Baker said he had no doubt that he had "enticed" the girls through internet chatrooms.

He said: "Smith deliberately set about finding girls on the internet with a view to embarking on sexual relations with them.

"He made contact with three adolescent girls, one as young as 12, and although it is right to note that he did not give a false impression of his own age he knew they were younger than him."

Smith had shown no remorse and little insight into the fact that what he had done was seriously wrong, Judge Baker added.

In setting an indeterminate sentence, he said he was satisfied that Smith posed a significant risk to members of the public, in particular young girls.

Smith earlier pleaded guilty to one count of raping a child aged under 13, nine counts of sexual activity with a child and one of abducting a child.

He was sentenced to three years in jail, to run concurrently, for the offence of abduction.