A former Eastenders actor has admitted that he committed a number of sexual offences against three underage girls.

Joseph Shade, who played Peter Beale on the show between 1998 and 2004, went on to become a youth worker in Norfolk in England. [caption id="attachment_358069" align="alignnone" width="742"] Joseph Shade as Peter Beale.[/caption] He admitted to five counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity while in a position of trust and one count of sexual activity with a child. The offences took place between 2012 and 2015, reports the BBC. Prosecutor Chris Paxton said Shade sent sexually explicit messages to the girls, aged between 14 and 17.

"During the course of his employment he accepts by his pleas that his relationships became too close to a number of attendees and he would engage with them by texting them messages asking them to have sex or to send sexual pictures of breasts and the like," Paxton told Norwich Crown Court. "On one occasion and only one occasion he touched one of them."

Shade was granted bail and will be sentenced at a later date.