A pervert who lied about his age on a dating app to groom young girls has been handed a suspended sentence.

Archie Stulpa-McCullum admitted sexually assaulting a girl aged ten, causing a child under the age of 13 to engage in sexual activity, two counts of attempting to meet girls under 16 after grooming and one charge of making indecent photographs of children.

At Ipswich Crown Court yesterday, Stulpa-McCullum, 20, was sentenced to 21 months in a youth detention centre, suspended for two years.

David Wilson, prosecuting, told the court Stulpa-McCullum, of Abrey Close, Great Bentley, used a dating app called Yellow to initiate contact with his victims, who were aged 12 to 16.

On the app he listed his age as 16 or 17, meaning he was able to talk to and message girls under 18. He was 18 at the time.

Mr Wilson said: “He told one of his victims there was ‘something attractive’ about taking risks with their age and the conversation continued whilst the prospect of meeting up was discussed.”

His conversations with the girls quickly moved from the dating app onto Snapchat, where Stulpa-McCullum exchanged nude photos with them.

The sexual assault took place when Stulpa-McCullum was 17.

Michael Levy, mitigating, told the court Stulpa-McCullum had spent his life dealing with “serious health conditions”.

“At the age of three he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and since then he has had a non-stop conveyor belt of difficulties.

“He was on the transplant list waiting for a heart and lung transplant but it was felt he would not be able to deal with them.

“Recently he was found to have spots on his liver and it looks like a new avenue of difficulty has been discovered,” he added.

Judge Rupert Overbury said his health conditions put Stulpa-McCullum’s offending “in some context” but he knew what he was doing was wrong.

He added: “You are troubled by your own mortality and struggling to fit into the world. It is fortunate the only face-to-face contact you had was with one victim.”

Stulpa-McCullum will complete 60 days rehabilitation, 29 sessions of a sexual offending programme and will be subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention order for ten years.