A REGISTERED sex offender allegedly used a false name to befriend a mother and abuse three of her daughters.

Pub chef Dominic Purvis also allegedly exchanged sexual images of children with strangers on the internet and had chat room conversations in which he said he liked girls aged six to 12.

He used the alias of Dominic James when he formed a relationship with a mother from East Devon who had four young daughters and a son, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Purvis is a transvestite who also uses the female identity of Teya Sue and used an e-mail address linked to this name when he allegedly made and exchanged images of young girls over the internet.

The part-time disc jockey and entertainer went on to befriend the mother, who had no idea about his true identity or his past until he was arrested during a police investigation into his use of computers.

Purvis, 47, of Gay Street, Wellington, denies two offences of distributing and three of making indecent images of children, two of failing to comply with the sex offenders’ register and eight of sexual assault.

He says someone else was using his computer when images were sent or received and that the three girls have invented the sexual allegations against him.

Adam Feest, prosecuting, said Purvis was put on the register after being convicted in 2006 of possessing indecent images of children.

His home was raided by police in 2011 and two laptops and an external hard drive were seized on which more than 1,000 indecent images and pages of chat logs were found.

He said Purvis used the internet name of Tanya0622 to communicate with men with whom he exchanged images and had conversations in which he said ‘I like six to 12 best’.

In some of the chats he gave the MSN address of an account he held under the name of Taya53, in which he described himself as a transvestite from Taunton.

Mr Feest said Purvis was arrested again in July 2013 when a laptop was found in his car with a further 1,298 images and five movies.

This arrest led to a mother from Devon contacting the police to say she had been having a relationship with Purvis, who she knew as Dominic James, his first two names.

Three of her daughters later alleged that Purvis had touched them when he was staying overnight at her home in East Devon.

Mr Feest said: “In this relationship he did not use his own name and ingratiated himself with the mother and her children to gain their trust and put himself in intimate contact with the children when they got into bed with their mother in the morning.

“They say he sexually assaulted them by touching them or asking them to touch him.

“We say he is a man with a long-standing and persistent sexual interest in children who took the opportunity to sexually abuse these three girls.”

The trial continues.