A young man 'mercilessly corrupted' vulnerable south Devon schoolgirls to satisfy his 'insatiable need for sex'.

Jake Ormerod, now 20, used drink and drugs to ply the victims before having unprotected sex with them.

He used Facebook and the internet as a main part of his 'campaign to groom naive and immature girls' and ended up having sex with three girls in one session.

Exeter Crown Court was told that some of the girls had been virgins until Ormerod abused them.

Ormerod pleaded guilty to 13 counts of sexual activity with girls and was jailed for ten years.

His conviction and sentence come as a result of an ongoing police investigation into child sex exploitation in Torbay, codenamed Operation Mansfield.

Jailing Ormerod, Judge Philip Wassall said: 'You targeted vulnerable girls as young as 12 and as old as 15, with the majority being 13.

'Your sexual appetite appears to have been insatiable.'

He said he had a callous disregard for the sexual health of his victims as he never wore a condom.

He said there was unlimited drink and drugs to lower their resistance and some victims were 'so stupefied they did not find out until later that you had had sexual intercourse with them'.

He said one virgin victim was asleep when he had sex with her and Ormerod also had sex with three naked girls in his bed one after another in a 90 minute sex session.

He will spend his time behind bars in a Young Offenders' Institute.

Defence lawyer Paul Dentith, in mitigation, said the 20-year-old was not a 'predatory paedophile'.

He said: 'He is not the Pied Piper of Torquay. Intellectually they were his equals, his friends, his peers.'

He said they drank alcohol together and had sex together.

Mr Dentith said there was a hate campaign against Ormerod, who will never be able to return to Torbay after his release from jail.

He said his mother was a chronic alcoholic and they lived in a wreck of a 'disgusting' house where the offences took place.

He said: 'He should have been in care himself. He is immature for his age.'

One victim's mother said afterwards: 'He has cherrypicked these girls because they are vulnerable and he has gone on to sexually exploit them.

'He has pretended to befriend them, shown them kindness and that he is a really decent, gentle guy – he isn't.

'I'm glad he is locked up. He started the exploitation of young girls years ago. He then worked over the next few years to groom vulnerable young girls and he has perpetuated this grooming.'

Only Ormerod has been charged and appeared in court in connection with the Torbay investigation.

Prosecutor Andrew MacFarlane outlined the case saying: 'Operation Mansfield investigated suspected child exploitation of a number of young girls by suspects in the Torbay area.'

He said a 'large number of missing young females were being regularly found at the home of the defendant'.

He added that some had formed sexual relationships with Ormerod when they were aged between 12 and 15 – with most being aged 13. all were vulnerable for different reasons.

Mr MacFarlane said: 'The defendant took advantage of their vulnerability. He mercilessly corrupted them in order to satisfy his apparently insatiable need for sex.

'He never used a condom. He never took no for an answer.

'He lowered what resistance they had mostly by the ready provision of drink and cannabis in significant quantities.'

Ormerod got the girls to shoplift alcohol because he was banned from many stores and he used that drink and cannabis to leave them 'wrecked' before having sex with them.

Mr MacFarlane said: 'In some instances the Crown could have preferred charges of rape.'

But he said that would have led to a trial and he said the victims were not in a fit state to give evidence because they were at a 'fairly low ebb'.

The victims said they went to his mother's home which they described as 'messy, minging, filthy and disgusting' and which had broken furniture and no power.

But Mr MacFarlane said: 'The lure of drink and drugs appears to have overwhelmed their disgust.

'He used the internet and Facebook as an integral part of their campaign to groom naive and immature girls.'

He had a hold over the girls, who were lured to the run-down home in Babbacombe Road, Torquay.

All eight of his victims were affected by his offending, said the prosecutor.

He said: 'For many it is no exaggeration to say that their lives have been damaged permanently and what remained of their childhood years have been destroyed.'

Their school said there were hundreds of incidents concerning their behaviour.

One victim, 14 years old at the time, has since tried to kill herself and has been hospitalised.

She admitted becoming a 'horrible child' as her mother desperately tried to save her from the clutches of Ormerod.

The girl said she became a 'rebellious cow' and that Ormerod pinned her down by her wrists to take her virginity.

But she did not consider it rape because 'there was not enough violence for rape'.

Later she reflected on Ormerod and called him a 'blatant scum who never washed and was a creep'.

Another 13-year-old girl said they frequently had sex together but said it was a consensual relationship.

Another 13-year-old said he targeted young girls on purpose and had a 'bad boy image which girls found intuitively attractive'. She also believed he may have spiked their drinks.

Yet another 13-year-old said he had sex with her as she drifted in and out of consciousness 'after getting wrecked' and she now had 'to live with this forever'.

A 13-year-old girl said he plied her with drink and drugs and having sex was 'like necrophilia'.

She said she 'will never be the person I was' and was enduring a 'lifetime of pain' having had her 'childhood snatched away'.

Yet another 13-year-old girl revealed that Ormerod suggested a threesome and over a 90-minute period he had sex with three young girls – who did not have sex with each other.