A 37-YEAR-OLD man has been found guilty of 16 sex offences involving children as young as four over a 20-year period.

Jason Hoyte, of Court Farm Road, Mottingham, was today convicted at Inner London Crown Court of 14 counts of indecent assault and a further two charges of sexual activity with a child.

He was found not guilty of several other charges.

The indecent assaults involved six victims aged between four and eight, dating back to the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The sexual activity happened between January 2006 and January 2007, relating to three victims aged 13 and 14 at the time.

Hoyte started his abuse as a teenager.

In some instances he met girls through their families or various church communities. He would win their trust before abusing them, sometimes in their own homes.

More recently, as a youth worker, he took advantage of that position to target and groom girls using inappropriate conversations and text messages.

Following this afternoon's verdict, the Met's investigating officer Detective Sergeant Samantha Townsend said: "Hoyte was every parent's nightmare - the family friend who appears respectable and trustworthy but turns out to be a fraud.

"He acted in an inappropriate manner with very young girls when he was a teenager and got away with it because the children mostly didn't complain at the time.

"Some of them were so young at the time, they did not realise until they were older that they had been sexually assaulted."

Hoyte, who denied all the charges, will be sentenced on December 11.