An Irvine mum is warning other parents to check their children’s social media accounts after her daughter was targeted by a pervert posing as television star.

Lyndsey Kelly says her eight-year-old daughter Carla was approached online by someone using a fake account claiming to be Nickelodeon star JoJo Siwa.

The Castlepark Primary pupil thought she was following her idol on Instagram, but was confused when ‘JoJo’ began asking her to send pictures of herself.

Lyndsey, 26 said: “Carla came to me all excited saying JoJo had contacted her on Instagram so I was immediately suspicious. But when I checked the messages I just could not believe what I was reading.

“The person was telling her he or she was JoJo Siwa and asked her to do challenges to get more followers and ‘make her famous’. The first thing they asked Carla to do was to bend over and ‘get her feet to touch her face’ and send a picture or video. I couldn’t believe it. I felt sick. I took the phone off her and I began messaging back, pretending to still be Carla. I said I didn’t want to because it would expose my bum and he wrote back “No one will see. Just me. Send it on here.”

“I phoned the police and they are now trying to trace who was using the fake account, but they said it’s difficult to find these people.”

Mum-of-three Lyndsey, from Redburn, says despite the scare, she is still allowing Carla to use Instagram.

She said: “I have had a lot of people telling me Carla shouldn’t have social media, but the fact is most kids have it or at the very least some access to the internet. Kids are in their room playing on their Xbox and they are on the internet and any other user can contact them. Banning kids from using social media or the internet isn’t the answer. It’s the way of the world and we just need to be on top of it and checking what our kids are doing.

“I check Carla’s phone every single day and read all her messages and go through her apps. I just want to make sure people know that there are dangerous people out there, pretending to be someone else..”

Following Carla’s incident, Castlepark Primary sent out a text message to aler t parents to be on their guard, saying: “ALERT: A parent has informed the school that her daughter was asked to send photographs of herself while using Instagram last night. Please be vigilant about your child’s social media use.”

Acting Chief Inspector Colin Convery said: “Our enquiries are still on going, however I would say that the decision made by this young girl to speak to her mum about these messages is exactly what we encourage young people to do.”