Police began investigating the case last year after parents in the Extremaduran town of Almendralejo reported fake and inappropriate images of their daughters circulating on WhatsApp groups.

One mother told Reuters at the time: “Many girls were completely terrified and had tremendous anxiety attacks because they were suffering this in silence. They felt bad and were afraid to tell and be blamed for it.”

A youth court in the city of Badajoz convicted the children of 20 counts of creating child abuse material and another 20 against the moral integrity of their victims.

In a statement the court said: “The sentence notes that it has been proved that the minors used artificial intelligence applications to obtain manipulated images of [other minors] by taking girls’ original faces from their social media profiles and superimposing those images on the bodies of naked female bodies. The manipulated photos were then shared on two WhatsApp groups.”