A man who enticed a 13-year-old boy for sex back to his Thames riverside apartment near Canary Wharf has been jailed for nearly five years.

Federico Traversa found the boy through a gay dating app and agreed to meet at his home on the Isle of Dogs in east London.

He showed the boy videos of young children performing sex before engaging in his own sexual activity with him in the bedroom.

It only stopped when the boy pretended to get a phone-call from his mother and left the flat.

But 31-year-old Traversa had secretly filmed them without the boy’s knowledge and later sent it to his mobile phone—which was his undoing.

It led to his arrest a few weeks later by the Met’s Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command.

“Traversa claimed his victim was above the age of consent,” Det Con Jonny Newell said. “But the boy told him he was 14—that didn’t stop Traversa engaging in sexual activity.

“The evidence we recovered later showed his sexual interest in children and I’m pleased he has brought before the courts.”

Traversa continued contact with the boy on social media after the incident last March at Galleons View apartment block in Stewart Street, Blackwall, by sending him the video and indecent images of young children, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

But the boy lent his mobile phone to his sister who saw the video. Police were called and Traversa was arrested on April 15, despite protests that sexual activity was by consent and that the boy said he was 16.

Traversa later admitted five charges in court—sexual activity with a child, causing a child to watch a sexual act, taking indecent photographs, possessing indecent images and possessing indecent moving images of a child. He was jailed yesterday for four years and eight months.