A MAN set up a fake profile of his pal’s girlfriend on a dating website and mailed out nude pictures of her to people who enquired.

Bolton Crown Court heard how the woman, who works as a teacher, discovered what Ryan Parmar had done after friends repeatedly contacted her to tell her they had seen her on the dating site Plenty of Fish.

At Bolton Crown Court Colin Buckle, prosecuting, told how 34-year-old Parmar knew the woman’s boyfriend and, after managing to get access to pictures on his pal’s phone, decided to distribute private sexual images of the woman.

In 2014 the woman was first alerted to her presence on the site by a friend, who came across her profile and then another friend told her the profile was still there. After contacting the profile he had been sent three or four nude images of the woman.

The woman was horrified, the court heard.

“She tried to deal with herself and contacted plentyoffish.com and reported the matter, but clearly it wasn’t successful,” said Mr Buckle.

Another man later came across the same profile on Plenty of Fish and recognised the woman as his friend’s latest girlfriend.

“I decided I had to tell him,” the man later told police.

The woman discovered naked photos of herself were still being sent out.

“It is impossible to know how many times the pictures were accessed,” said Mr Buckle.

After police were contacted they traced the IP address used to create the profile to Parmar and he was arrested.

But he denied being responsible, blaming the woman’s previous boyfriend, who was arrested and investigated by police before they realised Parmar alone was to blame.

Shortly before he went on trial Parmar, of Crescent Road, Great Lever, pleaded guilty to disclosing private sexual images as well as possessing an extreme pornographic video of an animal and six indecent images of children, retrieved from his iPhone during the police investigation.

In a victim statement the woman said: “I work as a teacher. I am deeply concerned about the impact this might have on my position as a teacher should parents ever find out about the pictures.”

Mark Friend, defending, stressed that Parmar, who has no previous criminal record, has not offended since his arrest.

“The defendant has been candid and straightforward in his probation report,” said Mr Friend.

“He has accepted the outrageous way in which he sought to deal with a situation which had developed.

“Completely erroneously, he sought to assist a friend of his in a way which was completely inappropriate.

“He now looks back on that behaviour, all these years later, aghast that he could ever have thought that that was appropriate, permissible, acceptable or, indeed, sensible.

“He offers his apologies to the complainant and anyone affected by his behaviour. He can’t find the words to explain the inexplicable. It was an aberration in what is otherwise a thoroughly decent life lived properly.”

Recorder Alexandra Simmonds sentenced Parmar to eight months in prison, suspended for 18 months and ordered him to undertake 80 hours of unpaid work plus 35 days of rehabilitation activities.

He was also made subject to a sexual harm prevention order and was placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Miss Recorder Simmonds told him: “Those images were private and were never intended to be viewed by anyone other than the recipient.

“They certainly weren’t intended to be viewed by you, let alone them being made widely available.

“There is no specific evidence as to how many people have actually seen these images but the fact that three friends of the person in them are able to see them and able to recognise her is a clue that these must have been widely available.”