Andrew Rundle, 51, sent explicit images to what he believed to be a young teen asking: “Can I paint you?”
Norwich Crown Court was told he had indulged in explicit chat online over a two month period with a profile that he thought was a young girl but was in fact a decoy account.
He encouraged her to send him photos of herself recreating explicit poses of sex acts, asked for her phone number and queried what her mother would think if she knew what her daughter was doing.
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Oliver Haswell, prosecuting, said: “The communication had involved discussion of art and painting and he had sent her images of women in sexually provocative poses.
“He referred to her posing and him being the artist. He was trying to encourage behaviour that may be acceptable for an adult but not a child.”
Judge Katharine Moore jailed him for two and a half years, placed him on the sex offender register and made him subject to a sexual harm prevention order for 10 years.
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She said after first making contact with the profile in January 2022 he had swiftly turned communications sexual.
“This was no one-off. You persisted and elements of your behaviour became more serious,” she said.
The court had heard Rundle had mild learning difficulties, but Judge Moore said this was no reason for his behaviour and that he had made “considerable efforts”.
“In my view you knew full well what you were doing,” she said.
Danielle O’Donovan, mitigating, said he did have a genuine interest in art and many images he had sent were non-sexualised.
“He is mortified by his behaviour which is completely out of character,” she added.