A CHEF posed as a woman on an online dating website and exchanged naked pictures before then claiming to be an underage girl and blackmailing a man out of £6,000.

Father-of-two Richard Stacey, 21, told his horrified victim that if he did not pay him he would name him online as a paedophile, a court heard.

Initially Stacey demanded sums of up to £200 from the victim, who paid up.

When Stacey started to demand more and more money, the victim, who cannot be named, ran out of cash and even resorted to stealing from his employer to maintain the secret.

Stacey, of Eastleigh, blackmailed the man out of more than £6,000, in an act branded “ugly, deeply unpleasant and insidious” by Judge Peter Henry.

Prosecutor Matthew Lawson told the court the defendant set up a profile on a dating website, which was not named, in March 2015 pretending to be an 18-year-old woman called Stacey.

Southampton Crown Court heard he was contacted by the victim and they began exchanging messages, which quickly turned sexual.

The pair exchanged mobile phone numbers and swapped more sexual text messages and later pictures, some of which were naked ones.

But the victim then received a message from the mobile number which said the girl was in fact 15 years old and not 18. The victim stopped messaging the girl two days later.

Stacey arranged to meet the victim at Eastleigh railway station face-to-face on around 10-12 occasions in total, and the victim handed over money.

By September the victim had been blackmailed for more than six months and ran out of money and decided to report the matter to Hampshire Police.

The court heard Stacey had texted his details to the victim and so police were able to trace him.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the victim said he felt “embarrassed” for what had happened.

He added: “I have been living in fear that this would be posted online.

“I am ashamed of how I treated my family and having to take money from them in order to pay the defendant. I am ashamed of what I have done to my work by taking money from them.”

Defending, Mark Florida-James said it was a “despicable” offence and his client was “genuinely remorseful” over his actions.

He added: “The obvious question really is what is the motivation for this? I have asked that of him and he said, and he was very candid in doing so, that was simple greed.”

Stacey, who has two children with his fiancee, admitted to one count of blackmail.

Judge Henry, who said there was no criticism of the victim, added: “What you did was both ugly, deeply unpleasant and insidious and it did have a considerable effect on the victim.

“You put the victim through hell over a lengthy period of time. You took advantage of his vulnerability and you kept doing it.”

Stacey was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison and given an indefinite restraining order to not approach the victim or his place of work.

He will have to return to court on September 5 for a confiscation hearing and could be ordered to repay all of the money he blackmailed out of the victim.