A mother has busted a suspected sex offender by pretending a photo of a Target bra model was her 11-year-old daughter – before allegedly receiving naked photos of him in return.

The woman from St Petersburg, Florida, who did not want to be identified, pulled off the plan after discovering her daughter had gone against her wishes and set up a Facebook account.

One night she noticed that the young girl was messaging a much-older man, 23-year-old Michael Jerome Bradley, after he added her as a friend on the social networking site in May.

Shocked by the allegedly horrifying messages he was sending the young girl – including that he wanted to have sex with her and for her to have his baby – she called him.

‘Do you know she’s 11 years old?’ she asked him, she told the Tampa Tribune. ‘If you keep calling my daughter, if you keep texting my daughter, I’m going to call the police and have you arrested.’

She contacted the police, but they said they did not have enough to go on, she said. So she took the law into her own hands.

When Bradley allegedly asked the young girl to send him photographs of herself, the mother said she found a bra advert in a Target magazine and sent him a picture of that instead.

Plot: The girl’s mother snapped a picture of one of these models from a Target magazine and texted it to Bradley when he allegedly asked the youngster for pictures of herself

‘Response’: After messaging the picture, Bradley allegedly sent nude photos of himself to the phone

‘I scrolled through the Target paper,’ she told 10 News. ‘I saw a girl in her bra, so I just grabbed my cell phone, took a picture of it and sent it to him.’

After receiving it, he allegedly sent her graphic text messages and naked photographs of himself – which was enough evidence for the police to make an arrest.

The mother said she was ‘terrified’ on receiving the messages.

‘I just thank God that I got a hold of it when I did,’ she said. ‘I can only imagine how far things could have gone if I would not have got a hold of it.’

Bradley was arrested on Friday and is being held at the Pinellas County Jail on $120,000 bail.

Warning: The mother, who did not want to be identified, said she is glad she stepped in before something worse happened to her 11-year-old daughter

He was charged with eight counts of displaying obscene images to a minor and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.

‘Obviously we commend [the mother] for her diligence in monitoring her daughter’s online activity, which is what was preach,’ said St. Petersburg police spokesman Mike Puetz.

‘We would caution one needs to proceed carefully when attempting to go to the next level and continue communications with the effort to try and develop a case.

‘Usually this is something best left to law enforcement.’

Read more: Daily Mail