Female Manchester student posed as a man to groom a 13 year-old girl online

A Manchester student has pleaded guilty to three charges of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one of inciting a child to engage in prostitution.

Sukhvinder Dudrah, 21, first contacted her then 13-year-old victim over the internet creating a fake male persona.

The Marketing and Management student used a photo from a dating website to groom her victim and soon they began exchanging increasingly sexual messages and videos via email.

Judge Peter Carr described it as “an unusual and troubling case”.

The messages ceased but restarted again after Dudrah began her studies on a marketing and management course at Manchester University in 2013.

This time, under the fake name, Ryan Walcott, and a photo taken from a dating website, the Manchester student began exchanging increasingly sexual messages and videos via email.

The grooming continued for six months before the victim’s parents eventually found out what was going on and contacted the police, discovering Dudrah’s true identity.

The victim was said to be “devastated” and suicidal after discovering that Ryan was actually female. Judge Peter Carr also reported that the victim has taken time off school and has struggled to form relationships.

Dudrah has been jailed for two years, with a suspended sentence for two years, after the judge at Birmingham Crown Court said he had taken her genuine remorse into account.

The court also accepted that there had been no distribution of the videos and images exchanged, and that Dudrah had no intention of taking the relationship any further.