Pimp sold 15-year-old girl for sex through FACEBOOK

A pimp who sold a vulnerable 15-year-old girl for sex through a brothel he ran on Facebook was put behind bars.

Lee Lambert, 26, organised the business from his Kirkby flat while advertising sex with the teenager – who was living in a children’s home – through Facebook and adult websites.

A jury took just ten minutes to find him guilty of controlling prostitution for gain and keeping a brothel.

Jailing him for three years, Judge Thomas Teague QC said Lambert posed “an ongoing threat to the welfare of young people through his repeated involvement in what is euphemistically referred to as the sex trade.”

Lambert, who appeared in court wearing large sunglasses and had a nasal feeding tube for medical reasons, created an online profiles for the girl – whom he claimed was 18 – and posted provocative photos to entice potential clients to his business, which he branded “Swinger Escorts”.

A trial heard how he outlined the extreme services she was allegedly willing to perform for clients, with prices he charged ranging from £18 to £168.

Lambert, of Denvers Park, Kirkby, took a small slice of the profits allowing the girl to keep the majority.

He was jailed in 2010 after being convicted of tricking young girls into sending sexually explicit pictures of themselves to his sham “model agency”.

Lambert’s fake agency LML Modelling promised girls up to £40,000 a year.

Judge Teague told him: “This is the second time in the last four years in which you have engaged in the exploitation of girls in the so-called sex industry.

“You may not have realised that this girl was only 15 but your culpability remains high.”

A jury was told how Lambert sent text messages talking about his business, and one in which he boasted: “Pimping ain’t easy.”

He also advertised for new girls to come and work for him, prosecutors said, posting adverts for “Escorts wanted – £500 a week”.

There was another woman who was also exploited by Lambert.

Judge Teague said the girl, who cannot be identified, was “groomed” by Lambert and believed he cared for her and “had her best interests at heart”.

He said: “There was certainly no physical coercion but you manipulated her emotionally and there was most certainly an element of corruption.”

Jurors in Lambert’s trial heard that he filmed a pornographic movie involving one of his customers and giving evidence Lambert claimed that a “legal loophole” meant he was not a pimp but a pornographer.

Lambert was also handed an indefinite Sexual Offences Prevention Order, restricting his access to the internet and banning contact with children.

Neville Biddle, defending, said his client had not known the girl’s real age and that the offences were committed during a short period in 2012.

Liverpoolecho