LONDON (Reuters) - A British police crime scene examiner was jailed on Friday after grooming a child over the Internet and asking her to do a "rude dare."

Southwark Crown Court heard how Paul Rogers, 37, had pretended to be a 14-year-old girl named Sarah who used the e-mail address "skoolchic_sez" to groom a girl he was told was 12.

In one e-mail, Rogers asked: "hey wud u and yr mates like to do a rude dare on me cusin and get paid to do it?"

In a later exchange, he offered to pay the youngster 100 pounds to strip him, dress him in female underwear and spank him -- but only if the 12-year-old was in underwear herself.

During the same conversation, "Sarah" introduced her cousin who was also Rogers.

Rogers arranged to meet the girl in September last year to carry out the dare, and asked her to perform an indecent act on him.

Later that night, they exchanged a large volume of text messages, with Rogers becoming increasingly explicit and asking intimate details about her body.

But the 12-year-old girl turned out to be an undercover reporter from the Sunday People newspaper.

Following his arrest, Rogers said in a prepared statement in a police interview, that the whole incident was a "harmless distraction" and he believed the girl was older than 16.

He said there was no sexual purpose in any of his actions, which were "silly" and "totally out of character."

Rogers, of Southampton, was jailed for 18 months after being found guilty at an earlier hearing of attempting to meet a child following grooming, and has been sacked by the Metropolitan Police force.

Detective Sergeant Nick Duffield, of the Met's Pedophile Unit, said: "This case will be another reminder to pedophiles that wherever they go and whatever their occupation, the Met's Pedophile Unit will respond to all allegations about individuals who may be putting children at risk of abuse and will track the perpetrator down."