SEXUAL predators are grooming young people via mobile phones as much as computers.

SEXUAL predators are grooming young people via mobile phones as much as computers.

That's the warning a victim's family issued after reading in last week's Herald how the parents of a 15-year-old Axminster girl saved her from possible physical abuse after checking MSN messages on her computer.

As police investigated that incident, a Honiton man was starting a jail sentence for having sex with young teenage girls. The mother of one of his victims said: "Mobile phones can be used as much as computers.

"We thought our daughter was up in her bedroom being a moody teenager.

"In fact, she was being bombarded by up to 150 text messages a day.

"Phones are taken for granted, but look what can happen."

The 14-year-old only ever met her abuser twice and one of those times was when she was introduced to him at a public event.

The girl's mother said: "He even managed to put credit on her phone - just by using her number.

"He didn't have a top-up card.

"When we saw the messages he had been sending her, they contained just the sort of things a 14-year-old girl wants to hear.

"It's horrible, what this man did to our family.