A 26-year-old man who started a relationship with a 12-year-old girl online with the intention of sexually exploiting her has avoided jail.

Matthew Eglinton, of no fixed address but from the Surbiton area, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, after pleading guilty to cause/incite a girl under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity with no penetration.

He will also be on the sex offenders register for ten years.

Eglinton met the victim in 2016 and, despite knowing her age, began a relationship with her on Facebook.

He urged her to meet him in his back garden and then in a local park. When they met, they would kiss and cuddle.

As the relationship developed, Eglinton would send her sexually explicit messages.

The girl’s parents found out about the relationship in late September of the same year after noticing she was leaving the house at the night and discovering communication between the pair.

They confronted Edlington and ordered him to stop seeing their daughter. Once the victim returned to school, she told a member of staff about the relationship who then called the police.

Officers went round to Eglinton's address but he had moved out.

However, he later handed himself in to the police station and was arrested and charged.

DC Huw Jones of Twickenham Police, who led the investigation, said: “Matthew Eglinton deliberately targeted a vulnerable girl for the purposes of his own sexual gratification.

“If his actions hadn't been discovered there is little doubt that he would have carried on with his efforts to exploit this child.”

Eglinton was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, August 18.